Solar Sails
Concept Led By: Numerous
Companies Involved: Only JAXA
Several government space programs, as well as private aerospace companies, have discussed the idea of using solar sails over the years. What are they? Essentially, think of them as you’d think of a sailboat. The sails use the wind to help the watercraft move on the water. You see a similar idea with solar sails. Instead of wind, the main driver of movement for a spacecraft would be energy given to it from the Sun. In space, the Sun is much more powerful as it does not need to break through a magnetosphere or atmosphere to work. Solar sails use the solar energy our Sun as well as stars in general provide.
The cool part is that the solar energy in space from our Sun, as well as other stars, is pretty immense. Allowing us to use solar sails possibly beyond Planet 9! However, this concept was a pipedream in the 1980s and 1990s. Several plans were developed that never made it beyond the planning stage. That all changed when the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency or JAXA sent IKAROS into space in 2010. This spacecraft design used a solar sail and flew by Venus, managing to successfully travel over 50,000 miles. This was massive progress that proves solar sails can be successful. Yet nothing has been made using solar sails as a main power source for spacecraft since.