LightSail is a project to demonstrate controlled solar sailing within low Earth orbit using a CubeSat. The project was developed by The Planetary Society, a global non-profit organization devoted to space exploration. [5] It consists of two spacecraft — LightSail 1 and LightSail 2. LightSail 1 was an engineering demonstration mission designed ...

2019年6月25日 · LightSail® is a crowdfunded project from The Planetary Society to demonstrate that solar sailing is a viable means of propulsion for CubeSats — small, standardized spacecraft that are part of a global effort to lower the cost of space exploration.

Solar sails (also known as lightsails, light sails, and photon sails) are a method of spacecraft propulsion using radiation pressure exerted by sunlight on large surfaces. A number of spaceflight missions to test solar propulsion and navigation have been proposed since the 1980s.

2021年11月15日 · Nearly two-and-a-half years after launching into Earth orbit, The Planetary Society’s LightSail 2 solar sail mission is still going strong. The spacecraft, which uses sunlight for propulsion, is currently operating in an extended mission to …

2025年1月30日 · The concept is to use lasers to propel miniature space probes attached to "lightsails" to reach ultrafast speeds and eventually our nearest star system, Alpha Centauri.

2025年2月7日 · "The lightsail will travel faster than any previous spacecraft, with potential to eventually open interstellar distances to direct spacecraft exploration," Caltech's Harry Atwater, the Otis Booth ...

LightSail ® is a citizen-funded project by The Planetary Society, the world's largest non-profit space advocacy group. We’re sending a small spacecraft into Earth orbit carrying large, reflective sails measuring 32 square meters (344 square feet).

2019年7月31日 · The Planetary Society's crowdfunded LightSail 2 spacecraft is successfully raising its orbit solely on the power of sunlight. Since unfurling the spacecraft's silver solar sail last week, mission managers have been optimizing the …