We need to find a way to get NanoSail-D into space. You'll recall that the original NanoSail-D perished in the explosion of a SpaceX Falcon rocket. But the opportunistic mission, a sail whose central components are three inexpensive Cubesats, two of which house a small, deployable sail, may yet get into the black. As we noted in this story from August of last year, a duplicate NanoSail-D is available. The trick is to find the funding and the booster. A joint project featuring The Planetary Society, NASA and the Russian Space Research Institute is attempting to do just that, looking at a solar sail experiment that may or may not involve NanoSail-D. The question is whether the 7 by 7-meter sail is the payload the mission planners will choose, the other option being a Russian-designed sail experiment of equally small size. You can read more about the design choices at The Planetary Society site. Image: The Huntsville-based NanoSail-D team stands with the fully deployed sail at ManTech...

New propulsion technologies are under study in the laboratory, even if finding the funding for such work is always a problem. James and Gregory Benford have demonstrated that a powerful microwave beam can push an ultra-light carbon sail even to the point of liftoff under lab conditions at 1 gravity. That's useful information, for if we can leave the propellant at home, we can contemplate deep space missions driven by beamed microwaves, a technology that not only can pack a wallop, but is also less destructive to sail materials than a laser, meaning the sail can be brought to high temperatures more efficiently. Unusual Acceleration Yesterday we talked about a possible 'Sundiver' mission built around the microwave beaming idea. The Benfords' version of this mission depends upon a second effect they observed in the lab. The photon pressure applied to the small sail they used could not account for the observed acceleration. Something was clearly coming out of the carbon lattice, but what...