Solar sails have some major advantages over traditional propulsion methods—most notably, they don't use any propellant. But, ...

NASA engineers and their industry partners have successfully deployed two 400-square-meter solar sails during ground testing. This is a critical milestone in the development of a unique propulsion ...

NASA engineers and their industry partners are preparing to test two 20-meter (66-feet) long solar sail propulsion system designs — a critical milestone in development of a unique propulsion ...

Spirals of solar wind can spin off larger solar eruptions and disrupt Earth's magnetic field, yet they are too difficult to detect with our current single-location warning system, according to a new ...

A variety of sailcraft missions are in the works. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. Solar sailing can be a relatively slow-motion ...

On April 23, NASA launched a solar sail protype to orbit around our planet — a piece of technology that could very well revolutionize the way we think about spacecraft propulsion. Then, on Aug. 29, ...

Turns out, it's as tough to drop inward into the inner solar system, as it is to head outward. The problem stems from losing momentum from a launch starting point on Earth. It can take missions ...

Nearly 70 years after the launch of the first satellite, we still have more questions than answers about space. But a team of Berkeley researchers is on a mission to change this with a proposal to ...

Over the last two decades, Les Johnson and his team of engineers have quietly been pushing NASA into a new era of space exploration while nobody was paying attention. As an engineer at the legendary ...