Over the last two decades, Les Johnson and his team of engineers have quietly been pushing NASA into a new era of space exploration while nobody was paying attention. As an engineer at the legendary ...

Researchers from Tuskegee University, Alabama, have developed a new photonic crystal (a kind of ...

For decades, researchers have explored light sails as an alternative. These devices use radiation pressure—the force exerted when light reflects from a surface—to generate thrust. When driven by a ...

A solar sail is no longer just a graceful idea for propellant-free flight; it is becoming a materials and deployment problem that engineers are finally learning how to solve. That shift matters ...

Nextbigfuture has a weekly video review of the big stories in science and technology. The later part of the video discusses laser pushed sails for fast missions around the solar system and then ...

Light sails propelled by radiation from high-power lasers offer a possible route to fuel-free space propulsion. However, ...

Adapting the concept of interstellar laser sailing for Earth orbital maneuvering and solar system exploration, researchers propose that the fundamental advantages of laser propulsion are manifested at ...

Scientists have successfully tested a material design for light sails using photonic crystals that could achieve 20% the speed of light ...

Spacecraft outfitted with sails and propelled by the sun are no longer the stuff of science fiction or theoretical space missions. Now, a Rochester Institute of Technology researcher is taking solar ...