BAE Systems says it has fired precision weapons from a large quadcopter uncrewed air system (UAS) to show how the combination ...

' Sedna ' is one of the outer solar system objects that may be classified as a dwarf planet in the future. A paper has been published examining whether nuclear propulsion or solar sails would be ...

Semiconductor lasers are a key component in numerous emerging photonics-enabled technologies, including additive manufacturing, data centers for artificial intelligence, inertial navigation, optical ...

What if you could ride light like a sailboat rides the winds across the ocean? While this concept may seem impossible, it's feasible thanks to several scientific developments over the years. Recent ...

The idea of using light from a nearby star or remote laser to propel a spacecraft is already being driven forward by NASA research. The space agency last year successfully extended into orbit an 80 m ...

NASA's Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3), a dazzling spacecraft designed to make use of the tiny amounts of radiation pressure exerted by sunlight for propulsion, is still spinning ...

NASA’s ACS3 is a technology demonstration of new materials and deployable structures for solar sail propulsion systems that use sunlight to propel the spacecraft. Much like a sailboat is powered by ...

Just in time for a Labor Day "sail", @NASA 's Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3) has successfully deployed! Solar sail propulsion systems like ACS3 can make future low-cost deep space ...

NASA’s solar sail mission is meant to test new materials and deployable structures for the experimental propulsion systems, including new composite booms that are used to unfurl the sail.

NASA has launched the latest attempt to test solar sail propulsion technology. The Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3), consisting of a CubeSat the size of a microwave oven and a solar ...