July 9, 2010 (on GY May 28), the first ship in the world "solar sailing" successfully achieve the body variable speed.


Japan Aerospace research and development agency announced on July 9, 2010, a world rely solely on sunlight-driven Space Junk "Icarus" has been successfully use sunlight pressure to achieve the body variable speed.
, "Icarus" from the earth about 19 million kilometers of space, to 26 kilometers per second, the speed of flight to Venus. With the changes in the angle of the sunlight, its speed is expected to further increase.
sunlight pressure is extremely small area of ​​about 200 square meters of sail receiving solar energy, by the pressure of about 0.1 grams. Nevertheless, in the absence of gravity and air resistance in space, with the accumulation of time, sunlight pressure to sailing a huge acceleration. It is reported that the next step "Icarus" direction control experiments.
"Icarus" sail about 14 meters square, polyimide resin production, sail a thickness of about 7.5 microns.
Review: quite Niua Japan and China also need to work ah