The ribbon solar sail will be a solar sail design using a thin film strip embedded with diffractive gratings. It is a NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) project. This configuration leverages ...

Momentus Inc. (NASDAQ: MNTS), a U.S. commercial space company offering satellites, satellite components, and in-space transportation and hosted payload services, today announced that it was awarded a ...

A new kind of solar power: NASA's Advanced Composite Solar Sail System recently hitched a ride to space on Rocket Lab's Electron launch vehicle. The spacecraft survived the trip and successfully ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. On April 23, NASA launched ...

NASA has launched the latest attempt to test solar sail propulsion technology. The ACS3’s solar sail is made of a reflective polymer and is held by a boom made of carbon fiber composite material.

Spacecraft data has confirmed successful deployment of the futuristic technology. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. More than four ...

An international team of researchers have demonstrated how to speed up the research and development of scalable, high-performing organic solar cells by using an automated, high-throughput platform. It ...

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, ...