The Planetary Society plans to pursue spacecraft propelled by light pressure, despite a failed attempt last year to deploy the first solar sail propulsion system. The spacecraft, Cosmos I, was developed by the Pasadena, California-based organisation, which underwrites space exploration and technology projects. Executive director Louis Friedman told last week’s International Space Development Conference in Los Angeles the society has raised $500,000 towards the $4 million cost of putting a second spacecraft in Earth orbit. The aim is to demonstrate controlled flight using sunlight pressure over one to two weeks. Compared with conventional spacecraft, light-pressure propulsion requires no fuel and “payloads could be as much as five to several hundred per cent more, depending on the mission profile”, he said.
Cosmos I was lost in the Barents Sea in June last year when the first stage of the submarine-launched Volna rocket failed to complete its scheduled burn.
Source: Flight International
