Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion Physics Forum Japan Launches Solar Sail

A powerful new Japanese spacecraft and experimental solar sail have blasted off together to start a six-month trek to explore Venus and cosmic parts beyond.
The launch had been delayed due to bad weather for two days.
One mission is aimed at uncovering the secrets of Venus and its cloud-covered surface, while the other could become the first interplanetary solar sail to fly successfully in space. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, is backing both spaceflights.

One of the main goals is to understand the "super-rotation" of the Venus atmosphere, where violent winds drive storms and clouds at speeds of more than 220 mph (360 kilometers per hour), 60 times faster than the planet itself rotates.
The solar sail craft will take the same starting trajectory as Akatsuki, but is scheduled to pass the orbit of Venus during an ambitious three-year journey to the other side of the sun.

Ikaros is designed to rely only upon the pressure of sunlight to push it along, but it also carries thin-film, electricity-generating solar cells embedded within its kitelike frame. Such a design might allow future spacecraft to draw electricity for ion-propulsion engines, even as they also use the solar sail for backup — not unlike a sailing boat that also uses a solar-powered engine.

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2010/03/19/2233551.aspx

Best of luck to them - solar sails represent a huge opportunity, and a practical answer to inner solar system transport. Here's hoping the mission is successful, and drives additional research into the tech.

Heck, maybe one day our great-great-great-grandkids will tell the story of the ghost ship "Mary Celeste II", from the grand ol' days of sail, which was found in orbit around Mars, sans crew...

Bryan

Interested to read this:

"Japanese researchers see Ikaros' flight as the first in a series of solar-powered space odysseys, leading up to a mission heading for Jupiter and its retinue of Trojan asteroids sometime in the 2020s. That ambitious journey calls for the use of a solar sail as well as a solar-electric ion engine."

How long do you suppose that journey might take? It took Galileo*** about 6 yrs.

It's almost unbelievable. How the world has changed since I watched Journey into Space on that old 12" monochrome valve TV. Now the dream is starting to materialise. Ion drive, solar sails...and coming soon, exaflop computers, quantum computers, fusion power...and a million other things (including 60" 3D flat panel TV). Looking at each decade of the past 50 yrs, technology can be seen advancing ever more rapidly as it builds upon itself, like an embryo.

As you say, Bryan, best of luck to them - and given that luck, our descendants in the 22nd century will live in world we can hardly dream of.

*** "On September 21, 2003, after 14 years in space and 8 years of service in the Jovian system, Galileo's mission was terminated by sending the orbiter into Jupiter's atmosphere at a speed of nearly 50 kilometres per second to avoid any chance of it contaminating local moons with bacteria from Earth. Of particular concern was the ice-crusted moon Europa, which, thanks to Galileo, scientists now suspect harbors a salt water ocean beneath its surface."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_spacecraft

I've long been a fan of hard-core scifi; as in the stuff where the authors limit themselves to things science actually says can exist. The past five years have been incredibly exciting - technologies that just a few years before were simple theoretical ideas found only in science journals and hard-core scifi novels are coming to life - be it solar sails, VASIMR, synthetic life, and so on.

Its an exciting time to be alive - at least, its an exciting time if you're not scared of science!

Bryan

Update on the Japanese Ikaros Solar sail
(note the Jap'nese spelling of Icarus)

The Ikaros launched in May 2010, having passed Venus, it
has been guided to sail around the Sun in (ever faster?) circles and going so well that they have extended its life for another six months.
With Ikaros's 27 square meter sail deployed, the full effect of radiation pressure from the sun on the sail produces about 0.0002 pounds of force, that's equal to about 0.1 grams -- less than the average goose feather! The acceleration offered by this method of propulsion is small but over a long period of time, incredible speeds could be reached.

http://www.icarusinterstellar.org/solar-sails-icarus-mission/

I believe... as Redewenur mentioned previously, the Japanese will launch a much larger Sail and send it off to Mars, or Jupiter, in the future.