JAXA: IKAROS Solar Sail Working As Advertised
JAXA MISSION UPDATE
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) would like to announce that we have confirmed the successful acceleration of the Small Solar Power Sail Demonstrator “IKAROS” by photon (*1) in the course of determining its precise orbit after its sail deployment. The IKAROS was launched by JAXA on May 21, 2010 and has been under operation since then.
The thrust by solar light pressure is 1.12 mili-Newton (*2,) which is the expected value. With this confirmation, the IKAROS was proved to generate the biggest acceleration through photon during interplanetary flight in history.
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We can only hope that projects like these put some wind in the sails of concepts that scale more gracefully, like dusty plasma solar sails.