Space Zoo Patrol – Solar Sail System

By the Office of Communications at NASA’s Ames Research Center 

  1. What is the name of the technology? 

NASA’s Advanced Composite Solar Sail System, or ACS3.

  1. What does it do?

The Advanced Composite Solar Sail System is a lightweight solar sail spacecraft that harnesses the power of sunlight to move through space. The mission launched in April 2024 sail was deployed from the body of the spacecraft four months later. The square-shaped sail measures about 30 feet per side at its full expansion.

Scientists will learn from the ACS3 demonstration to launch larger lightweight solar sail systems that could be used for early warning satellites, to locate near-Earth asteroids, or for communication with crewed space missions.

  1. How does it work?

Solar sails use the pressure of sunlight for uses propulsion (like a sailboat wind), angling toward or away from the Sun so that photons bounce off the reflective sail to push a spacecraft. Solar sails can operate indefinitely, limited only by the durability of the solar sail materials and spacecraft electronic systems in the space environment.

  1. How is it better than the older technology?

This test mission is studying the use of stiffer, lighter materials for the booms, which hold the sail in place. The new boom technology could support solar sails of much larger size in future missions.  This technology uses no chemical, electrical, or nuclear propulsion mechanisms.

  1. What classes should I take in school to work on this?

Related fields of study:

      • Electrical Engineering
      • Mathematics
      • Physics
      • Aerospace Engineering
      • Software Engineering
      • Space Operations

 

  1. Pictures
Solar Sail System 1

Advanced Composite Solar Sail System

  1. Links

NASA’s Advanced Composite Solar Sail System, or ACS3:

https://www.nasa.gov/smallspacecraft/what-is-acs3  

https://blogs.nasa.gov/smallsatellites/tag/advanced-composite-solar-sail-system-acs3