Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. NASA hitched a ride aboard Rocket Lab’s Electron Launcher in New ...

April 22 (UPI) --NASA is gearing up for a launch this week that will test a new way to navigate the solar system, using a large sail to catch the sunlight. The Advanced Composite Solar Sail System is ...

NASA has launched the latest attempt to test solar sail propulsion technology. The Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3), consisting of a CubeSat the size of a microwave oven and a solar sail, ...

NASA’s experimental solar sail is ready to take flight in Earth orbit, using the pressure of sunlight to test a new way of propulsion through the cosmos. The Advanced Composite Solar Sail System(ACS3) ...

Depending on the mission they've been created to fulfill spacecraft can be powered by a variety of technologies. Presently, the most widespread is the one that uses propellant and rocket engines. But ...

Yesterday, Rocket Lab successfully deployed two satellites on the same launch while they were more than 500km apart in the context of a mission called the “Beginning Of The Swarm” (B.T.S.). Among them ...

A microwave-sized spacecraft with large silver wings is tumbling in orbit as engineers work to fix a glitch that’s causing it to lose orientation. After deploying four composite booms on board the ...

On April 23, NASA launched a solar sail protype to orbit around our planet — a piece of technology that could very well revolutionize the way we think about spacecraft propulsion. Then, on Aug. 29, ...

Overview of the solar panels test of the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3) spacecraft in the Ames Integration Facility. Spacecraft have always been expensive to launch, largely because of ...