Giovanni Vulpetti – författare

Solar sailing is a topic of growing popular and media interest. Solar sail propulsion will make space exploration more affordable and offer access to destinations within (and beyond) the solar system that are currently beyond our reach. This book describes solar sails, how they work and what they will be used for in the exploration of space in an easily readable manner which does not necessitate any prior knowledge of physics or solar sailing. It discusses current plans for solar sails and also describes how advanced technology, such as nanotechnology, might enhance solar-sail performance. Much has been accomplished recently to make solar sail technology very close to becoming an engineering reality and it will soon be used by the world’s space agencies in the exploration of the solar system and beyond.

The book has four parts, each with multiple chapters which, in turn, contain some references and suggested further reading. Parts 1 - 3 are non-mathematical, while Part 4 contains more detailed technical information.

The range of solar sailing is very vast; it is a fully in-space means of propulsion that should allow us to accomplish various mission classes that are literally impossible using rocket propulsion, no matter if nuclear or electric. Fast and very fast solar sailings are special classes of sailcraft missions, initially developed only in the first half of the 1990s and still evolving, especially after the latest advances in nanotechnology. This book describes how to plan, compute and optimize the trajectories of sailcraft with speeds considerably higher than 100 km/s; such sailcraft would be able to explore the outer heliosphere, the near interstellar medium and the solar gravitational lens (550-800 astronomical units) in times significantly shorter than the span of an average career (~ 35 years), just to cite a few examples. The scientific interest in this type of exploration is huge.