X-37B Satellite Travels on Sun Beams..Latest Update - Page 2 of 2

To continue, here is more in depth on their experiement:

A timer will start the process of burning through super thin wires that release four spring-hinged solar panels from the satellite’s sides. “This exposes the compartments where the solar sail material is stashed,” says Rex Ridenoure, CEO of Ecliptic Enterprises Corporation and one of the lead engineers. Then, a drive motor kicks into gear, and the four booms unfold. “At the end of each one of those booms is a clasp that hooks onto a triangle-shaped section of the solar sail material.” Fully deployed, the square sail will be 8 meters from corner to corner. As the sails deploy, cameras will snap a picture every other second.

Wow I can’t wait to find out more to see if this works. Here are also two comments about the launch and they both have good points:

Commenter #1 says:

I doubt this to be true. Coming really close to the sun also means more gravitational pull from it’s extreme mass. You’d need more energy to escape this pull, undoing the effect of having more energy in the sail. At least that’s what my common sense tells me.

Commenter #2 replies:

That would be true if you came to the sun and then stopped there before launch. A common sense tells me that a spacecraft with a folded solar sail would be put in extremely eccentric orbit around sun. When it just goes around sun at a very high speed flying away, THAT’S where the sail is deployed and the craft accelerates ever faster and escapes sun gravitation.

BTW THIS JUST IN AS OF JUNE 3. THE BATTERY HAS FAILED SO THERE IS A GLITCH IN THE SAIL

Let’s hope they fix it!

thanks to wired for the awesome writeup

thanks to the planetary society for the pic