Solar-Powered Spacecraft Arriving In 2016?

In what looks like Count Dooku’s personal spaceship in Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones, the small spacecraft that you see above also comes with a very of solar-powered sail that it can call its own. This small aircraft was specially designed to harness the power of the sun so that it will be ready to launch on board a SpaceX rocket a couple of years from now.

Known as the LightSail, this happens to be an unmanned satellite-like craft that will feature a solar sail that ought to go some lengths in assisting this solar-powered sail to be a reality when one leaves the earth for a mission aboard the SpaceX Falcon Heavy.

This unique foot-long (30 centimeter) spacecraft will arrive with a quartet of extremely thin Mylar sails, where it intends to take advantage of the constant pressure exerted by sunlight when in space, so much so that if all the calculations are right, this sail directed spaceship ought to be able to explore new galaxies without too much issue. The LightSail intends to circumnavigate the earth’s orbit. The solar sail will be stashed away within another spacecraft that is called the Prox-1. Prox-1 has but one function, that is, to eject the solar sail before tailing it, snapping photos all the time.

Edwin Kee
Categories: Green, Transportation
Tags: Space