We hope LightSail 2 will send back beautiful pictures. And we believe it will fundamentally advance the technology of spaceflight. Solar sailing is elegant not only in concept but also in its ...

LightSail 2, a cubesat deployed in 2019, used a 32 square meter sail to increase its speed and gain altitude over the course of a couple of years in orbit, while the Japan Space Agency's IKAROS ...

The LightSail 2 satellite, launched in June, may have proved how to lighten the load. It’s currently flying free using only light as fuel. When photons from sunlight hit its silvery sail ...

"The lightsail will travel faster than any previous spacecraft, with potential to eventually open interstellar distances to direct spacecraft exploration." Scientists at the California Institute ...

But a higher-energy version of this phenomenon could use a ground- or space-based laser beam to push a lightsail on a spacecraft in a more directed way. With the beam providing a source of ...