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MORE than two years after a rocket failure destroyed NASA鈥檚 NanoSail-D solar sail, the agency last week launched a spare into orbit. If it unfurls as planned over the coming days, it will be the first NASA sail to open in space.
鈥淚f NanoSail-D unfurls as planned over the coming days, it will be the first NASA sail to open in space鈥�
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Solar sails are designed to be propelled by the pressure of sunlight. They have the potential to carry spacecraft vast distances without fuel, but for years, attempts to test them in orbit have run into stormy weather. In 2001 and 2005, launch failures wrecked two solar sail missions led by the Planetary Society, a space advocacy group in California. NASA鈥檚 original NanoSail-D suffered the same fate when its Falcon 1 launcher failed in 2008.
But this year the winds of fortune seem to have shifted. In May, Japan launched a solar sail called IKAROS which succeeded in exploiting sunlight to propel and steer itself.