The first demonstration of Japan’s solar sail (a new space propulsion technology) went off without a hitch, making their goal of traveling driven only by sunlight that much closer.
“This is the first sail ever deployed in space, and if they succeed in using it for solar-sail flight — it’ll still be a few weeks before we know that — it’ll be a milestone,” said Louis Friedman, executive director of the Planetary Society, an organization dedicated to promoting space exploration, which is readying its own solar-sailing mission.Full story at Wired Science.