相关论文: Swarm of lightsail nanosatellites for Solar System…

Space exploration is of paramount importance to advancing fundamental science and providing global services, such as navigation and communications. However, today's space missions are hindered by limitations of existing propulsion…

Lightsail spacecraft, propelled to relativistic velocities via photon pressure using high power density laser radiation, offer a potentially new route to space exploration within and beyond the solar system, extending to interstellar…

The Breakthrough Starshot Initiative is suggested to develop the concept of propelling a nano-scale spacecraft by the radiation pressure of an intense laser beam. If such a nanocraft could be accelerated to 20 percent of light speed, it…

Solar sails can play a critical role in enabling solar and heliophysics missions. Solar sail technology within NASA is currently at 80% of TRL-6, suitable for an in-flight technology demonstration. It is conceivable that an initial…

Solar sails enable missions to observe the solar environment from unique vantage points, such as sustained observations away from the Sun-Earth line; sub-L1 station keeping; high inclination solar orbits; Earth polar-sitting and…

Space debris is an ever-increasing problem in space travel. There are already many old, no longer functional spacecraft and debris orbiting the earth, which endanger both the safe operation of satellites and space travel. Small…

Laser-accelerated lightsails enable new types of missions that are very different from the Breakthrough Starshot mission to the Centauri system that aims to send 1 gram of payload at 0.2 c. The present work widens the mission design space…

The primary challenge of rocket propulsion is the burden of needing to accelerate the spacecraft's own fuel, resulting in only a logarithmic gain in maximum speed as propellant is added to the spacecraft. Light sails offer an attractive…

The Starshot lightsail project aims to build an ultralight spacecraft ("nanocraft") that can reach Proxima Centauri b in approximately 20 years, requiring propulsion with a relativistic velocity of ~60 000 km/s. The spacecraft's…

Microwave propelled sails are a new class of spacecraft using photon acceleration. It is the only method of interstellar flight that has no physics issues. Laboratory demonstrations of basic features of beam-driven propulsion, flight,…

This paper investigates a swarm-based concept in which a number of nanosatellites, referred to as NanoTugs, are deployed by a mother spacecraft to capture and cooperatively stabilize and de-orbit space debris. The study focuses on the…

We discuss the in-flight autonomous assembly as the means to build advanced planetary science payloads to explore the outer regions of the solar system. These payloads are robotically constructed from modular parts delivered by a group of…

In this paper it is presented the concept and design of a new type of spacecraft that could be used to make the first manned interstellar travel. Solar one would integrate three near-term technologies, namely: compact nuclear fusion…

This article is devoted to research the application of the spacecraft with a solar sail to support the certain climatic conditions in an area of the Mars surface. Authors propose principles of functioning of the spacecraft, intended to…

In this paper, we explore from a conceptual standpoint the possibility of using natural astrophysical sources to accelerate spacecrafts to relativistic speeds. We focus on light sails and electric sails, which are reliant on momentum…

The solar gravitational lens (SGL) provides a factor of $10^{11}$ amplification for viewing distant point sources beyond our solar system. As such, it may be used for resolved imaging of extended sources, such as exoplanets, not possible…

Lightsails are a highly promising spacecraft concept that has attracted interest in recent years due to its potential to travel at near-relativistic speeds. Such speeds, which current conventional crafts cannot reach, offer tantalizing…

Achieving laser-driven, reflective, relativistic light sails would represent a tremendous breakthrough for humankind, allowing us to advance our understanding of the solar system and deep space far beyond what we know from space probes,…

Interest in the exploration of, and the establishment of a human settlement, on Mars is rapidly growing. To achieve this, rapid transit will be required to bring crucial cargo. Current missions to Mars take 150 days, which would be too long…

Lightsails are promising spacecraft that can traverse interstellar distances within decades via radiation-pressure propulsion from high-power lasers. The envisioned missions crucially rely on the sail being confined within the propelling…