NASA launches zonnezeil of more than 1200 square metres in 2014

0
296

NASA is planning next year, the largest zonnezeil so far to launch. The project, code-named Sunjammer, the feasibility of the solar wind as aandrijfbron for zonnezeilen demonstrate. The sail is over twelve hundred square metres in size.

The sail, the Sunjammer project is together with L-Guard by NASA’s Space Technology Program is built. It has a length of 38 metres and a surface area of approximately 1,200 square feet. A Falcon 9 rocket from SpaceX must sail to the end of 2014 to the space transport. There must zonnezeil unfold and solar power a distance of about three million kilometers away.

After the zonnezeil in the so-called lagrange point has arrived, first the stuurvaantjes prove the zonnezeil to be able to adjust its position to maintain. Then it must be continue the trip, and the solar wind to use as aandrijfmiddel. Photons that come from the sun, colliding against the zonnezeil and by the large surface area to deliver the combined impulses of the photons with enough power for a small gear; the sail generates approximately 0.01 newton.

The zonnezeil must therefore be very light. It is made of a material which is Kapton is called. With a thickness of only five microns, the weight of the sail is still 32 pounds. Earlier, in 2010, launched NASA a small zonnezeil, the NanoSail-D, which is only slightly more than 9 square metres in size. The technique could, among other things, can be used for instruments at the sun to study and asteroids to visit.