The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency JAXA would like to announce that we have confirmed the successful acceleration of the Small Solar Power Sail Demonstrator “IKAROS” by photon 1 in the course of determining its precise orbit after its sail deployment. The IKAROS was launched by JAXA on May 21 2010 Japan Standard time and all the following time and dates are JST unless noted otherwise and has been under operation since then. The thrust by solar light pressure is 1.12 mili-Newton 2 which is the expected value. With this confirmation the IKAROS was proved to generate the biggest acceleration through photon during interplanetary flight in history.
via JAXA | Small Solar Power Sail Demonstrator ‘IKAROS’ Confirmation of Photon Acceleration.
Robin Edgar
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