New Study Shows Solar Sails as Potential Interplanetary Guides.

Scientists have proposed merging miniature satellite units with solar sails to create a fast, inexpensive, and lightweight mode of travel for interplanetary missions. Solar sails obtain thrust by using highly reflective, lightweight materials that reflect sunlight to propel a spacecraft while in space. The Sundiver Concept, as the researchers refer to it, combines solar sails and miniaturization to enable affordable missions to reach farther and faster into the outer regions of our solar system, with great promise for heliophysics, planetary science, and astrophysics.