Cosmos 1 is a solar sail mission by the Planetary Society and Cosmos Studios.
A suborbital test launch was performed in April, 2001, but the launch vehicle failed to separate from the test spacecraft.
The actual mission is now planned for Winter 2001.
All launches are from a Russian submarine launched Volna rocket.
Select here for the press release.
Team Encounter Deep Space Probe is a mission to send a collection of messages, images, and biological samples of millions of participants on an escape from the solar system on a solar sail. This mission was originally conceived of by Bill Boland of Forever Bound, as discussed in this Spaceviews article.
Interstellar Probe is a mission proposal to send a solar sail propelled spacecraft out of the solar system at high velocity (14 AU/year). One of it's primary goals is to travel outside the influence of the sun's solar wind and directly measure the composition of interstellar space.
Also see:Geostorms - < Page currently unavailable> A mission proposal to levitate a solar storm warning spacecraft closer to the sun than the sun-earth L1 point using the continuous thrust from a solar sail for earlier detection of solar storms.
Also see:Solar Blade is a project at the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute to fly a nanosatellite heliogyro mission.
Living With a Star is a proposed program at Goddard Space Flight Center that would begin a 5 year, $511 million program to study the sun in detail, including the development of solar sails. For additional information, see:
Space Regatta Consortium (SRC) and Znamya < Page currently unavailable > - The SRC is developing large thin film deployable structures for such space applications as illumination of polar cities and solar sails. The SRC successfully deployed Znamya, a 20 meter diameter spinning mirror from a Progress resupply spacecraft on February 4, 1993 after it undocked from the Mir space station. Znamya 2.5 was deployed exactly 6 years later on February 4, 1999. Znamya 2.5 was 25 meters in diameter, had improved reflection, and a control system allowing pointing of reflected sunlight at specific point on Earth. Unfortunately, Znamya 2.5 failed to deploy.
SRC is primarily sponsored by Rocket Space Corporation Energia, and is licensed by the Russian space agency, Rosaviakosmos.
Other Znamya pages:Interworld Transport - The world's first solar sailing company, which has launched and deployed test solar sails in the upper atmosphere on JP Aerospace rockets. Started by Dr. Alfred W. Differ.
Union for the Promotion of Photonic Propulsion (U3P) - general information on solar sails and U3P, by Olivier Boisard. This site contains many images, Quicktime movies, VRML solar sail models, and technical reports.
DLR Solar Sail Homepage. The solar sail homepage has been updated with information about their research activities. Included is information about the ODISEE demonstration mission, Mercury orbiter and asteroid rendezvous missions, and sail structure technology. There are also numerous pictures of solar sail spacecraft.
Solar Polar Sail Mission - a solar observation spacecraft delivered to a 0.48 AU radius solar polar orbit by a solar sail.
The Microlight Solar Sail - a craft only meters across designed by UK SEDS.
Solar Sails at Asteroids: Close Proximity Operations for Scientific Missions was a presentation to the American Astronomical Society by Esther Morrow and others. This web page gives the abstract and where to get the full length paper.
Allan McInnes completed a master's thesis entitled Strategies for Solar Sail Mission Design in the Circular Restricted Three-Body Problem at Purdue University. The format is a gzipped Postscript. If you have problems viewing this document, let me know at diedrich@ugcs.caltech.edu.
ILC Dover solar sail research. This page shows some of the current research by ILC Dover into sails and booms for solar sailing spacecraft.
Mini-Magnetospheric Plasma Propulsion (M2P2) - A project at the University of Washington Geophysics and Aeronautics and Astronautics departments into solar wind propulsion.
Solar Sail Project. This page describes a solar sail project currently underway at the Space Systems Dynamics Laboratory at Kyushu University in Japan. In Japanese.
Solar Sail Trajectories and Design. General information page on solar sail trajectory research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Department of Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering.
Solar sail mission analysis and solar sail mission studies performed by Colin R. McInnes at the University of Glasgow Department of Aerospace Engineering.
Future Mission Concept NRA Results. Scroll down for the Solar Polar Sail Mission submitted by Marcia Neugebauer, which is one of 19 out of 70 mission plans selected by NASA for further study.
New Technology Requirements for solar-wind magnetospheric coupling, including solar sails. Includes a table of how far from the Earth or sun synchronous orbits can be maintained with sails of varying performance (mass to area ratio).
Using a Solar Sail for a Plasma Storm Early Warning System. This plan uses a solar sail to provide levitation over the sun and active control to maintain a solar storm detection system closer to the sun than the first Sun-Earth Lagrange point (L1).
Star Travellers is an article by Mariette DiChristina in Popular Science on interstellar propulsion. Interstellar laser sails are discussed as the most likely near-term interstellar propulsion method.
Senior Project: Solar Sails is a feasibility study by Ward Vuillemot on the use of solar sails for cargo transport between Earth and Mars.
Solar Sail page of Fueling Interplanetary Travel. This page is part of a site called Fueling Interplanetary Travel, which discusses various modes of propulsion.
How Solar Sails Will Work and How Solar Sails Work are introductions to solar sails from How Stuff Works. These pages are nice introductions with images, some history, and recent developments.
Papers by Geoffrey Landis. These papers by Geoffrey Landis include three papers concerning laser driven interstellar light sails:
Planetary Defense: Catastrophic Health Insurance for Planet Earth
Some Novel Space Propulsion Systems by Forrest Bishop
Sailing the Proton Winds by Charles Danforth. This is a detailed document describing magnetic sails, which use the solar wind to sail instead of sunlight by generating a magnetic field. See also Magnetic Sails.
Solar Sails for the Operational Space Community by Patricia Mulligan. An article in SpaceViews on recent interest in solar sails for the "operational space community" of NOAA, DOE, and the USAF. GEOSTORMS is discussed.
The Sky Over Berlin, February 1999, discusses the possibility of sending a solar sail to perform a fast flyby of Pluto towards the end of the page. There also some nice renderings of a square solar sail and Znamya.
Solar Sailing. By K. Eric Drexler. A discussion of the high performance solar sail invented by K. Eric Drexler for his master's thesis from MIT's department of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
Light Sails for Pre-Stellar Destinations. By Seth D. Potter and Gregory L. Matloff.
Solar Sail Maneuvering of Remote Sensory Equipment - submittal by Dr. Alfred W. Differ to the Small Business Innovation Research Program.
NASA Technical Report Server solar sail abstracts - searches for "solar AND sail" at NASA's Technical Report Server.
Lunar Solar Sail Race Notes by members of the Artemis Society.
Proposed Methods of Interstellar Travel, including solar, laser, and microwave sails, as well as charged particle beam propelled magnetic sails. By Nathan Millard.
Non-Chemical Rockets and Solar Sails. Discussion of different spacecraft propulsion methods, including radiation pressure on solar sails.
Earth to Orbit Transportation Bibliography. Entry 32 in the bottom left frame, the MOON-EARTH MOMENTUM EXCHANGE, discusses using solar sails to transfer mass between the Earth and Moon. Included is a picture of an orbital sail fabrication machine.
Solar and Laser Driven Lightsails. By Alasdair Allan. This page gives a very thorough description of the concepts of solar and laser sailing.
Note: This page is no longer available.
If you know of the current location or of the author, please let me know.
Magnetic Sails by Ges Seger. This page gives a brief explanation of magnetic sails, or "magsails," that were extensively studied by Dana Andrews and Robert Zubrin.
Magsails use the solar wind instead of sunlight to sail by generating a powerful magnetic field around them.
Also see Sailing the Proton Winds.
Starwisp (see #75) is a concept of Robert Forward whereby a lightweight wire mesh sail is pushed by a microwave beam instead of sun or laser light.
Space Odysseys is a general article on possible solar sail missions from CNN. This article includes a lesson plan for educators.
Sail Technology Beamed to Future Space Exploration.
This press release from JPL on July 5, 2000, discusses two successful experiments in beam-propelled sailing.
The tests used a new lightweight yet stiff carbon-carbon microtruss fabric for the sail material.
One experiment used microwaves to push the sail material vertically, while the other used a laser to push a sail horizontally.
Also see:
Space sails cruise through demonstration tests - from CNN Technology: Space
NASA charts course to sail to the stars on largest spacecraft ever built - This story from the Marshall Space Flight Center Newsroom discusses work at the center to develop an interstellar solar sail probe.
SPACE.com Exclusive: Breakthrough in Solar Sail Technology - This SPACE.com articles discusses a recently developed carbon fiber micro-truss sail material. The material is as light as thin film sail material, such as Kapton or Mylar, but has some flexibility and stiffness. The material is also highly reflective of microwaves, which is applicable for beamed propulsion.
JPL Accomplishes Historic Laser Sail Demonstration - This Space.com articles discusses recent experiments performed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory which pushed a piece of sail material attached to the end of a pendulum using lasers.
NASA's Vision: Probes At Stars by 2100 - A Space.com article about NASA's plans for interstellar missions in the next century. There is a discussion of solar sailing for this purpose, including an image of the trajectory used by a solar sail to escape the solar system at high speed.
Setting Sail for the Stars - An article from NASA Space Science News discussing new ideas for interstellar solar sails brought up at the 1999 Advanced Propulsion Research Workshop by Robert Forward and Geoffrey Landis.
In particular, the use of grey carbon solar sails is discussed, because of their high heat tolerance.
See also the Mining Co. Space article.
The New Millennium Program at NASA has announced that it is seeking members for its Space Technology 5 (ST5) Project Formulation Teams. The three project concept areas in ST5 are:
JPL to Host Workshop on Inflatable Space Technology. Discussion included use of inflatable solar sail structures. Here are some pictures from the inflatables demo. Captions will follow soon.
Workshop on Solar Sail Propulsion. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is holding a workshop on solar sails Thursday, February 13th, 1997.
Solar Sails in Science Fiction. This essay by Alan C. Helms discusses the use of solar sails and related ideas in historical works of science fiction.
Java Solar Sail Simulators. These are excellent Java applets available on the U3P solar sail web site which allows you to control a solar sail starting from an orbit near the Earth. Or, try racing a solar sail.
Mariner 10, the first spacecraft to use solar sailing techniques by using the pressure of sunlight reflecting off of the solar panels for attitude control.
Solar sail haiku by Dave Niedens.
Last modified: Fri Jul 19 09:37:42 PDT 2002