NASA To Launch Next-Generation Solar Sail Technology With Rocket Lab

Sailing through space: the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3) spacecraft by NASA is set to launch no earlier than April 23rd, aboard Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket from Launch Complex 1 in Māhia, New Zealand.

An artist's concept of NASA's Advanced Composite Solar Sail System spacecraft in orbit. Credits: NASA/Aero Animation/Ben Schweighart — *An artist’s concept of NASA’s Advanced Composite Solar Sail System spacecraft in orbit. Credits: NASA/Aero Animation/Ben Schweighart*

Solar sailing, once a mere concept relegated to the realm of science fiction, now emerges as a tangible reality with profound implications.

Harnessing the subtle yet powerful pressure of sunlight, solar sails offer a paradigm shift in propulsion systems, heralding an era of longer-duration and cost-effective space missions.

Managed by NASA Ames, which designed and built the onboard camera system, and NASA Langley, which designed and built the deployable composite booms and solar sail system, the initiative is made possible through the funding and management of NASA’s Small Spacecraft Technology program. Further support comes from NASA STMD’s Game Changing Development program.

A new way of solar sailing

The core principle behind solar sailing is elegantly simple: spacecraft equipped with reflective sails adjust their orientation relative to the Sun, allowing photons to bounce off the sail and impart momentum, thereby propelling the vessel forward.

Traditionally, the efficacy of solar sails has been hindered by the limitations of boom materials, like the mast of a sailboat. However, NASA’s advancements are about to redefine the rules of the game.

The Advanced Composite Solar Sail System is housed within a twelve-unit (12U) CubeSat engineered by NanoAvionics, which provided the spacecraft bus. This system boasts a new composite boom constructed from flexible polymer and carbon fiber materials, offering unparalleled stiffness and lightweight properties previously precluded with conventional designs.

*Mariano Perez, quality assurance engineer at NASA Ames, inspects the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System spacecraft. Credits: NASA/Brandon Torres*

“Booms have tended to be either heavy and metallic or made of lightweight composite with a bulky design – neither of which work well for today’s small spacecraft,” notes Keats Wilkie, the Mission’s principal investigator at NASA’s Langley Research Center.

“This sail’s booms are tube-shaped and can be squashed flat and rolled like a tape measure into a small package while offering all the advantages of composite materials.”

What happens once in space?

Firstly, upon reaching its Sun-synchronous orbit approximately ~965km (600 miles) above Earth’s surface, the spacecraft will start a meticulously choreographed sequence.

The composite booms will unfurl over 25 minutes, culminating in the deployment of the solar sail, measuring approximately 80m² (860 square feet). This sequence will be documented by spacecraft-mounted cameras.

“The hope is that the new technologies verified on this spacecraft will inspire others to use them in ways we haven’t even considered,” stated Alan Rhodes, Mission’s lead systems engineer at NASA’s Ames Research Center.

Indeed, the implications of this endeavor extend far beyond the confines of the immediate mission objectives.

*Engineers at NASA’s Langley Research Center test deployment of the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System’s solar sail. Credits: NASA*

A successful demonstration of lightweight composite booms could pave the way for additional case-studies, from lunar expeditions to voyages to Mars and beyond. The scalability of this technology opens doors to future iterations of sails potentially encompassing areas equivalent to half a soccer field.

“The Sun will continue burning for billions of years, so we have a limitless source of propulsion,” said Rhodes. “We will demonstrate a system that uses this abundant resource to take those next giant steps in exploration and science.”

A technology not only for spacecrafts

Notably, in addition to its implications for space propulsion, the versatility of composite booms extends also to terrestrial applications, with the potential to revolutionize habitat construction on the Moon and Mars.

Lightweight and compact, these booms could serve as the structural backbone for extraterrestrial abodes, facilitating the realization of humanity’s long-standing dreams of planetary (or even multi-planetary) colonization.

“Demonstrating the abilities of solar sails and lightweight, composite booms is the next step in using this technology to inspire future missions,” said Rudy Aquilina, Project Manager of the solar sail mission at NASA Ames. “This technology sparks the imagination, reimagining the whole idea of sailing and applying it to space travel.”