NASA’s Near-Earth Asteroid Scout is tucked away safely inside the agency’s powerful Space Launch System (SLS) rocket at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The solar sailing CubeSat is one of ...

Solar sailing has moved from science fiction concept to working hardware, and now a new generation of entrepreneurs wants to turn that gentle push of sunlight into a commercial engine. Instead of ...

Sailing across the cosmos is finally becoming a reality. S Shannon Stirone Follow For centuries, it has been a dream: traveling through space powered only by the solar wind. It was first imagined in ...

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 plans to build larger solar sails that can generate more thrust. A new unique composite carbon fiber booms, the ACS3 system has the potential to support sails as large as 2,000 square meters, or ...

Over the last two decades, Les Johnson and his team of engineers have quietly been pushing NASA into a new era of space exploration while nobody was paying attention. As an engineer at the legendary ...

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.

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 ...

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 testing a solar sail system in space, and the spacecraft that brought the tech there has snapped a photo. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.