Special Cosmos Sail Uses Earth-Bound Energy To Assist Ascent
The joint UCI-Microwave Sciences Inc. mission will take place next spring, commencing with the satellite launching from a Russian submarine off the coast of St. Petersburg. The satellite will be called the Cosmos Sail, the first solar-sail craft to orbit Earth. |
Irvine - Nov 06, 2002
UC Irvine physicist Gregory Benford will announce plans for the first known attempt to push a spacecraft into the Earth's orbit with energy beamed up from the ground. Benford will give details on the unique project at the First International Symposium on Beamed-Energy Propulsion (ISBEP) Wednesday, Nov. 6, at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
The joint UCI-Microwave Sciences Inc. mission will take place next spring, commencing with the satellite launching from a Russian submarine off the coast of St. Petersburg. The satellite will be called the Cosmos Sail, the first solar-sail craft to orbit Earth.
The Benfords developed the sail with researchers from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Made from lightweight layers of aluminized mylar, the sail will allow a craft to be propelled from low orbit to high orbit and ultimately into interplanetary space, driven by microwave energy, similar to the way wind pushes a sailboat across the sea.
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