NASA’s Advanced Composite Solar Sail System

NASA’s Advanced Composite Solar Sail System will launch as a secondary payload aboard Rocket Lab’s ‘Beginning of the Swarm’ mission. The Solar Sail System will demonstrate the use of innovative materials and structures to deploy a next-generation solar sail from a microwave-sized CubeSat. Just as a sailboat is powered by wind in a sail, solar sails employ the pressure of sunlight for propulsion, eliminating the need for conventional rocket propellant.