[ad_1]
NanoAvionics has been selected to build a nano-satellite bus, in other words, the infrastructure of the spacecraft, for an in-orbit demonstration of NASA’s Advanced Composite Solar Sail System with a 800-pen solar sail system and composite pen. square feet. Professor Loeb, a science professor at Harvard University, is chairman of the Breakthrough Starshot Advisory Committee, which aims to launch light spacecraft toward the nearest stars using a powerful laser. In theory, such a technique could send spacecraft at full speed to the galaxy at one-fifth the speed of light, and the long-term goal is to send a probe to Alpha Centauri, Earth’s closest neighbor, a journey that would take 20 years.
As such, Starshot will differ from solar sail projects like NASA’s, which would be dependent on sunlight and would therefore be much slower.
However, Professor Loeb said the latest developments paved the way for future spacecraft and potentially interplanetary travel.
He told Express.co.uk: “It is a significant step forward to realize Light Sail technology to launch payloads into space cheaper than with chemical propellants.
“Sailing in the light is the wave of the future.”
Professor Loeb has suggested that Oumuamua, the anomalous interstellar object that passed through the solar system in 2018, was in fact an alien probe powered by sunlight, a claim that has been hugely controversial, but still considers a possibility.
Conventional wisdom suggests that the object has a natural origin, possibly a comet.
ONLY IN: Kim Jong-un dead? Suspicions about the last photo
“At first we thought it was maybe a comet, but then we didn’t see any gases around it and then we thought it was an asteroid, but by the time it was too weak to look at it six months later, people realized it had this extra push So the question was what produced that push.
“At that moment I began to think that it could be artificial.
“But it was too late to get more data.
“We cannot chase it because it moves faster than any type of rocket, but what we can do is look for others and in a few years there will be a large synoptic exploration telescope that could find many more of the same.”
F Brent Abbott, CEO of NanoAvionics North America, was also enthusiastic and told Express.co.uk: “The smallest size and lowest cost of nanosatellites will eventually allow sending groups of satellites to the mission in deep space, This will allow the scope of research missions to be expanded and space objects to be explored in ways that have not yet been feasible.
“By applying the same standardization and principles that have been used in the automotive industry for over a century, we have created a small, universal satellite vehicle capable of accommodating a greater variety of payloads and being used for various applications, such as the system solar sail for NASA
“Reductions in costs and much shorter production times while maintaining the same high standards will also make advanced mission more likely.
“The technology demonstration with the NanoAvionics 12U bus will be the first in-orbit test of NASA’s composite barriers, as well as the packaging and sail deployment systems for a solar sail.”
“It will guide the development of a new generation of nano-satellites with a solar sail propulsion system for small interplanetary spacecraft.”
