I've Seen Things You People Wouldn't Believe -- Spacecraft with Graphene Sails Powered by Starlight
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Coin-sized pieces of graphene can be accelerated by firing low-powered lasers at them in micro-gravity conditions, say scientists. The technology could be a stepping stone to graphene solar sails, which could propel future spacecraft using starlight or a laser array.
The material was developed at SCALE Nanotech, a startup in Estonia and Germany, with the support of Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. The project, backed by the European Space Agency, is experimenting with graphene to develop prototype light sails.
"Light sailing is the only existing in-space propulsion technology that could allow us to visit other star systems in a human lifespan," the scientists stated in a paper, published in Acta Astronautica. "In order to best harness radiation pressure, light sails need to be highly reflective, lightweight and mechanically robust."
To make these sails, the team crafted an atomically thin 2D film punctured with tiny holes, and covered it with a layer of graphene. Next, they traveled to the ZARM drop tower, a laboratory at the University of Bremen, Germany, that uses a 146-metre steel tube to simulate micro-gravity conditions to test their graphene coins. When the material was dropped inside and floating effectively weightlessly, it was accelerated 1 m/s2 by zapping it with a 1W laser. The photons in the laser light exerted a pressure on the material causing it to move faster and faster.
[...] Santiago Cartamil-Bueno, coauthor of the paper and the leader of the GrapheneSail team at Scale Nanotech, believes "graphene is part of the solution" to developing practical light sails.
Journal Reference:
Rocco Gaudenzia, Davide Stefaniam, Santiago Jose Cartamil-Buenob. "Light-induced propulsion of graphene-on-grid sails in microgravity", Acta Astronautica (DOI: 10.1016/j.actaastro.2020.03.030)
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