NASA Aims to Set Sail in Space

July 9, 2008 -- Astronomers have long counted on photons to reveal mysteries and wonders of the cosmos. Engineers would like to tap the beams for another purpose: propelling satellites through space.

Though it sounds more like science fiction -- the late Arthur C. Clarke wrote about it in a short story from his collection, "The Wind from the Sun" -- the idea of using the force of light from the sun has been around since the 17th century.

Three years ago, a group led by the privately funded Planetary Society attempted to demonstrate the technology with a project called Cosmos-1, but a botched launch doomed the project.

Now it is NASA's turn.

The agency plans to fly a tiny probe known as NanoSail-D, which is scheduled for launch later this month aboard an experimental Falcon 1 rocket, built by Internet entrepreneur Elon Musk's new startup, Space Exploration Technologies.

NanoSail is not the primary payload and it will be booted off the launcher rather early in the flight. Because the spacecraft will be left in an elliptical rather than circular orbit around Earth, it will be dragged back into the atmosphere as early as five days after launch.

That's not a concern for Edward "Sandy" Montgomery, the NanoSail manager at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., who has been working on solar sail technologies for the past eight years.

"We want to see if the sails deploy in space," he told Discovery News. "This is not a performance evaluation."

Still, a successful demonstration may be enough to convince future spacecraft planners to replace or augment chemical thruster rockets with thin, rolled-up sails that can be unfurled in orbit to catch the sun's light.