Jun 21 1977
From The Space Library
JPL announced that NASA had followed its recommendation and selected a 12-bladed spinning solar sail spacecraft as a candidate for the automated interplanetary shuttle to be used within earth's solar system in the 1980s and beyond. Also known as a heliogyro, the set of extremely long blades or sails made of reflective aluminized plastic would be deployed in two tiers of six each by centrifugal force after its spacecraft had been launched from the Space Shuttle late in 1981. The spacecraft and its scientific payload, mounted at the center of the heliogyro, would be propelled by photon radiation from the sun to rotate once every 3min. The spinning-sail concept had been chosen by program engineers and designers for development as being more feasible than a square-sail concept that would have used an 850sq.m (half-mile square) sail configuration. NASA would choose in mid-Aug. between the heliogyro and a proposed ion-drive (solar-electric propulsion) spacecraft for a Halley’s Comet mission in 1986. JPL had been working with other NASA centers and a dozen industrial and research groups on parallel efforts to develop low-thrust long-life spacecraft for the 1980s. (JPL Release 826)
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