Solar Power Moving IKAROS Through Space

On July 9, 2010, the Japanese Space Agency, JAXA, announced that its IKAROS spacecraft is being propelled through space by photons hitting the craft's solar sail.

IKAROS was launched on May 21. Its name stands for Interplanetary Kite-Craft Accelerated by Radiation of the Sun.

JAXA measured the thrust from solar light pressure as 1.12 millinewtons, the weight of a 0.114 gram (0.0002 pound) object on Earth.

IKAROS weighs almost 315 kilograms (700 pounds). Its solar sail is 46 feet by 66 feet and is thinner than a human hair. Solar cells in the sail are used to create electricity.

Scientists on the ground can control the speed of the spacecraft by altering the angle of the sail. This will change the number of photons that hit IKAROS' solar cells.

IKAROS will observe dust in the inner part of the Solar System and the direction and polarization of gamma ray bursts, which are believed to take place when a new star forms.

The Akatsuki Venus Orbiter was launched along with IKAROS.

NASA and The Planetary Society are in the process of designing their own solar powered spacecraft, known as LightSail 1.