Fraser Cain on Nostr: Solar Sails Could Reach Mars in Just 26 Days While SpaceX is working on Starship to ...
Solar Sails Could Reach Mars in Just 26 Days
While SpaceX is working on Starship to carry huge payloads to Mars, the fastest flight times could be accomplished with solar sails. A new paper suggests that a 1 kg payload with a 100 square meter solar sail could reach 65 km/s relative to Mars. They could blast out of the solar system going 109 km/s, and if it's first directed towards the Sun, they could reach 148 km/s, getting to the heliopause in just 4.2 years. This opens up a range of possible missions, like the outer planets, interstellar space, and the solar gravitational lens.
#solarsail
http://arxiv.org/abs/2308.16698
While SpaceX is working on Starship to carry huge payloads to Mars, the fastest flight times could be accomplished with solar sails. A new paper suggests that a 1 kg payload with a 100 square meter solar sail could reach 65 km/s relative to Mars. They could blast out of the solar system going 109 km/s, and if it's first directed towards the Sun, they could reach 148 km/s, getting to the heliopause in just 4.2 years. This opens up a range of possible missions, like the outer planets, interstellar space, and the solar gravitational lens.
#solarsail
http://arxiv.org/abs/2308.16698