Washington, D.C. –“We’re back!” said Louis Friedman, Executive Director of The Planetary Society. “With an even more ambitious solar sail program than our last venture.” The Planetary Society today ...

After years and many setbacks the Planetary Society’s test spacecraft deployed its 344 square foot solar sail in space over the weekend. The society’s LightSail is a cubesat whose initial flight will ...

Engineers in California pressed a button on Tuesday that unfurled the sails on a satellite that can be steered around Earth, advancing long-held hopes for an inexhaustible form of spaceflight and ...

The Planetary Society’s LightSail 2 is a winner of the 2024 Gizmodo Science Fair for testing the feasibility of using photons from the Sun as a form of propulsion for satellites. Can solar sailing ...

Sailing across the cosmos is finally becoming a reality. S Shannon Stirone Follow For centuries, it has been a dream: traveling through space powered only by the solar wind. It was first imagined in ...

A tiny spacecraft is about to sail into its demise, burning up as it reenters Earth’s atmosphere for the end of its mission. The Planetary Society’s LightSail 2 has been getting dragged down by the ...

After more than three years circling the Earth, the Planetary Society’s LightSail 2 mission has come to an end following a fiery reentry. The satellite was an important tech demo for the idea of solar ...

With help from NASA, a small research satellite to test technology for in-space solar propulsion launched into space Wednesday aboard an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, ...

Scientists are calling for the increased combination of CubeSats and solar sails to up our Solar System investigation. They believe that combining the tiny satellites with the relatively cheap and ...