ESA engineers are looking at using the world's thinnest known material to build lighter, more efficient solar sails. By making sails out of one-atom-thick graphene sheets, the space agency aims to ...

It has been about two years since Yuri Milner announced his most audacious piece of science-focused philanthropy: Breakthrough Starshot, an attempt to send hardware to Alpha Centauri by mid-century.

A new study examines structural buckling as a control method for solar sails, detailing kirigami cuts, simulations, and experiments to adjust spacecraft orientation efficiently.

Scientists working with a synthetic material 100 times thinner than a piece of paper are testing their theory that the sun can power interplanetary spacecraft. They believe that photons — particles of ...

Not necessarily. Re orient the sail on the way in to use the destination sun to brake. It doesn't need to slow all the way to a stop, just enough to get into some sort of orbit. Then it just uses the ...