NASA plans to play in the sky with the world’s largest solar sail ever conceived.
The new upcoming missions are intended to transform its space communications, deep space navigation and in-space propulsion capabilities.
For these missions who should be launching in 2015 and 2016, have been selected tree projects.
One of the three projects is the solar sail measures a whopping 100 square feet (9.29 square meters)and spans 409 square feet, or 38 square meters.
Do you wonder what are they going to do with such a big sail?
The answer is simple: The sail could be used to gather orbital debris over a period of several years and included to a satellite’s payload, activating towards the end of the mission dragging the satellite out of its orbit.
The project is being led by California’s L’Garde Inc., in collaboration with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA and the solar sail should be ready in three years.