"Japan to launch satellite with ‘solar sail’" by Bloomberg News | April 28, 2010
TOKYO — The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency plans to launch the world’s first satellite powered by a giant solar sail to demonstrate next-generation renewable-energy technology, the agency said yesterday.
The 20-meter sail, which cost about $16 million, will be wrapped around the “space yacht’’ during liftoff and will unfurl once the craft leaves the earth’s atmosphere, the agency said....
The flexible sail is covered in a film of solar cells and will be about 32.5 micrometers thick, about half the thickness of a human hair, the agency said. The technology, known as thin-film solar, is being developed to one day replace fixed solar panels.
The sail propels the craft using resistance created by energy from the sun in much the same way as the wind propels a sailboat across the water.
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