Spacecraft data has confirmed successful deployment of the futuristic technology.
  • Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    16·
    3 months ago

    “The location of the spacecraft in its orbit is roughly two times the altitude of the International Space Station. If you were looking at the sail from above…”

    Gotta level with you nasa, for most of us we’re going to be looking at things at that altitude from BELOW.

  • MsPenguinette@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    3 months ago

    If photon hitting a surface can impart momentum, does generating photons also impart momentum? Like, if you put a solar powered laser pointer in space, would it move?

    • OrganicMustard@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      3 months ago

      Yes, but that would be a lot less efficient. With a dielectric mirror you can get easily 99.9% of the maximum momentum gain from the light, while with a solar powered laser you would get for the emission the compounded efficiency of the solar panel + storage + laser, so way below 10%. So you would gain around 10 times more impulse from your solar panel absorbing light than from the actual laser.

      The final momentum gain is a bit different as the maximum you can gain from a photon is double its momentum (because you can reflect it back with opposite direction).

    • ch00f@lemmy.worldEnglish
      41·
      3 months ago

      Sure, but it would be less efficient than a sail, and since the incoming radiation would impart inertia on the solar panels, you would still be limited on where you could steer.

      • SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        3 months ago

        Sail absorbs power while also acting as a sail, and you can use the lasers to steer?

        It would also be like steering a boat more or less no?

        • ch00f@lemmy.worldEnglish
          11·
          3 months ago

          The solar sail reflects light instead of absorbing it so you get to double dip on photon momentum.

          And sure, you can steer with the laser I suppose, but with that kind of super weak deltaV, you’re not going to be exactly doing donuts in the solar system.

          Even the massive solar sail only imparts a super small amount of force. It’s only useful because it does so for free over a long period of time with no air resistance.

          You’d be better off using a conventional thruster to do whatever steering you needed to do before letting the sail take over. It’s not like you need to steer around any obstacles.