Not long ago, Japan’s Aerospace Exploration Agency JAXA, launched a probe that literraly sails in space by using solar pressure from the sun. Recently, on their official website, JAXA announced that accelartion by solar sail was confirmed and successful.
IKAROS (Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation Of the Sun) is an experimental spacecraft. It is the first to demonstrate solar-sail technology in space successfully.
It’s traveling to Venus in a six month long journey along with Akatsuki, then will be having a three-year journey to the far side of the Sun. Later this year JAXA will start their second mission which will involve another solar powered probe that will sail to Jupiter and the Trojan asteroids.
JAXA’s solar sail technology means that space exploration and building probes will be much cheaper and easier, and that means that smaller and less developed countries like Kuwait could go into space exploration soon.
