Nasa is said to be testing a new design called the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System which was deployed in orbit just a few days ago after flying on a Rocket Lab launch. The deployed sails and booms are required to be as light as possible in order to be effective, according to IFL Science. Nasa has designed new composite materials that are not just lighter but also harder than previous approaches to solar sails for this new experiment. \u201cBooms have tended to be either heavy and metallic or made of lightweight composite with a bulky design \u2013 neither of which work well for today\u2019s small spacecraft. Solar sails need very large, stable, and lightweight booms that can fold down compactly,\u201d Keats Wilkie, the mission\u2019s principal investigator at Nasa\u2019s Langley Research Center, said in a statement. \u201cThis sail\u2019s booms are tube-shaped and can be squashed flat and rolled like a tape measure into a small package while offering all the advantages of composite materials, like less bending and flexing during temperature changes,\u201d it added. The fully deployed sails measure 80 square metres (860 square feet) which is also roughly the area of six parking spots. \u201cSeven metres of the deployable booms can roll up into a shape that fits in your hand,\u201d said Alan Rhodes, the mission\u2019s lead systems engineer at Nasa\u2019s Ames Research Center in California\u2019s Silicon Valley. \u201cThe hope is that the new technologies verified on this spacecraft will inspire others to use them in ways we haven\u2019t even considered.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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