NASA completed the ACS3 mission overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday, which could revolutionize space travel.
It was not an insignificant rocket that launched into space from New Zealand on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday. The Electron rocket from the company Rocket Lab carried on board a solar sail capable of moving on its own thanks to… light from the Sun. A future revolution for space travel.
Deployed in approximately two months at an orbit of 1,000 km, twice that of the International Space Station (ISS), the 80m2 solar sail is eagerly awaited by NASA researchers.
Electron gets all the attention, but every now and then the Kick Stage likes to slip into frame and remind us who delivers our customers’ satellites to their precise, final orbits? \ud83d\udc4b pic.twitter.com/jFXiFjjUzC
— Rocket Lab (@RocketLab) April 24, 2024
Like a kitesurf with the wind
Once deployed, the large sail of the ACS3 mission should be able to move solely thanks to photons from the Sun’s rays, as do boat or kitesurf sails on Earth with the wind.
NASA will then test the stability of the sail which will be permanently oriented towards the Sun from Earth. The American space agency is waiting to see how the sail will be able to move since the idea, ultimately, would be to use this type of element to propel longer-distance missions across the solar system.
Imagined by Stephen Hawking
Science and Future recalls that “the principle of the solar sail has been widely exploited by science fiction authors”. “It is a question of taking advantage of the almost infinite source of energy offered by the Sun to generate a weak but continuous acceleration in order to travel great distances, or even reach other galaxies, as imagined by the famous astrophysicist Stephen Hawking with his Breakthrough Starshot project.
But traveling in space using the Sun’s rays will not happen immediately. The ACS3 mission will be mainly technical. However, its lessons will be valuable and eagerly awaited by the scientific community.