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Very cool! I know nothing about solar sails, but I wonder if the craft could have LEDs mounted to it so it could bombard different regions of the sail with photons to make it turn appropriately.
Very cool! I know nothing about solar sails, but I wonder if the craft could have LEDs mounted to it so it could bombard different regions of the sail with photons to make it turn appropriately.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you emit a particle (a photon) and then catch it the net effect will be 0.
Exactly, it is much like using a fan on a boat to blow a sail.
Very cool! I know nothing about solar sails, but I wonder if the craft could have LEDs mounted to it so it could bombard different regions of the sail with photons to make it turn appropriately.
If you emit a particle (a photon) and then catch it the net effect will be 0.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That would be like taking fan and blowing it into your own sails. It wouldn't work.
It does work though, depending on the material your sail is made of. Try it: attach an electric fan to a pinewood derby car and point it so it is blowing into a tin foil sail also attached to the pine wood derby car. The car will move forward.
That would be the equivalent of the fan being on the sailboat.
Yes, if you had another power boat next to the sailboat you could blow the boat, but it would be transferring some energy from the engine of the powerboat.
So if you had another spacecraft near the space sail, and that spacecraft was shooting light, it would have some miniscule effect, but I didn't think that is what you meant.
Edit: I suspect you're kidding but I can't be sure.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That would be like taking fan and blowing it into your own sails. It wouldn't work.
It does work though, depending on the material your sail is made of. Try it: attach an electric fan to a pinewood derby car and point it so it is blowing into a tin foil sail also attached to the pine wood derby car. The car will move forward.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That would be like taking fan and blowing it into your own sails. It wouldn't work.
It does work though, depending on the material your sail is made of. Try it: attach an electric fan to a pinewood derby car and point it so it is blowing into a tin foil sail also attached to the pine wood derby car. The car will move forward.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's like trying to propel your sailboat by holding up an electric fan.
I mean, it's only the size of a boxing ring, not a football field. I think LEDs could produce enough light to have a net effect.
Very cool! I know nothing about solar sails, but I wonder if the craft could have LEDs mounted to it so it could bombard different regions of the sail with photons to make it turn appropriately.
If you emit a particle (a photon) and then catch it the net effect will be 0.
So having a directional lightsource fire into the sail wouldn't work, but having one that emits light in every direction on one side of the sail would.
Why deorbit it though? Why not try for an EM-Lagrange point?
This was a technology demonstrator and it has completed its mission successfully. It simply wasn't launched to an orbit where it can do more (Cubesats hitch rides on rockets launching larger, expensive payloads)
NASA does have a mission intended to navigate quite a bit more using a solar sailing cubesat.
https://www.nasa.gov/content/nea-scout
I'm not sure to what extent the mission will rely on the solar sail though.
