May 6 2005
From The Space Library
Alliant Techsystems announced the successful completion of the first in a series of ground tests for solar-sail technology, developed to enable solar-powered interplanetary probes and solar observatories. At NASA's GRC's Plum Brook Station in Ohio, NASA engineers fully deployed a 20 x 20 meter (65.6 x 65.6 feet) version of the solar-sail system, in a 100-foot-diameter (30.5-meter-diameter) vacuum chamber, to test the system's functional deployment and attitude control. The test marked a critical milestone in the development of in-space propulsion technology using the Sun's energy, instead of fuel propellant, to provide thrust. The In-Space Propulsion Program of NASA's Science Mission Directorate was developing the solar-sail propulsion system. (Alliant Techsystems, “ATK and NASA Successfully Test First Solar Sail Propulsion System,” news release, 6 May 2005, http://atk.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=118&item=447 (accessed 16 September 2009).)
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