Photo credit: MacKenzi Martin
The NASA-backed Diffractive Solar Sailing project was recently chosen for Phase III study under the agency’s Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program. This phase aims to strategically transition NIAC concepts with the highest potential impact for NASA, other government agencies, or commercial partners. How does it work? Solar sails basically use the pressure exerted by sunlight to propel a craft through space.
Most of the current reflective solar sail designs are very large and thin, thus limiting them to the direction of the sunlight. This forces the sails to make tradeoffs between power and navigation. These new diffractive lightsails essentially use small gratings embedded in thin films to take advantage of a property of light called diffraction, which causes light to spread out when it passes through a narrow opening. When this happens, it enables the spacecraft to make more efficient use of sunlight without sacrificing maneuverability. JBL Reflect headphones use solar power in a different way, one that eliminates charging and swapping batteries entirely.
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Exploring the universe means we need new instruments, new ideas, and new ways of going places. Our goal is to invest in those technologies throughout their lifecycle to support a robust ecosystem of innovation,” said Jim Reuter, associate administrator for NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
