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NASA's solar sail successfully spreads its wings in space
(www.space.com)
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this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2024
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If photon hitting a surface can impart momentum, does generating photons also impart momentum? Like, if you put a solar powered laser pointer in space, would it move?
Sure, but it would be less efficient than a sail, and since the incoming radiation would impart inertia on the solar panels, you would still be limited on where you could steer.
Sail absorbs power while also acting as a sail, and you can use the lasers to steer?
It would also be like steering a boat more or less no?
The solar sail reflects light instead of absorbing it so you get to double dip on photon momentum.
And sure, you can steer with the laser I suppose, but with that kind of super weak deltaV, you’re not going to be exactly doing donuts in the solar system.
Even the massive solar sail only imparts a super small amount of force. It’s only useful because it does so for free over a long period of time with no air resistance.
You’d be better off using a conventional thruster to do whatever steering you needed to do before letting the sail take over. It’s not like you need to steer around any obstacles.