Two Football Fields of Solar Sail in One Rocket [NIAC 2026]

🔴 [Interview+] No YT ads. Bonus Part. FREE for everyone
https://www.patreon.com/universetoday/posts/171501222/

🟣 Guest: Dr. Artur Davoyan
https://samueli.ucla.edu/people/artur-davoyan/

Solar sails are great. It's a propulsion method that doesn't require carrying fuel. But the need to be really big to be efficient. How do you fold them on Earth and unfold in space? What's a reliable way to do that? NASA recently awarded a NIAC grant specifically for that.


📜 Coilable Stacked Solar Sails for Very High delta-V Missions
https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/stmd/niac/niac-studies/coilable-stacked-solar-sails-for-very-high-delta-v-missions/

👉 All 2026 NIAC Selections
https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/stmd/niac/niac-studies/niac-2026-selections/

00:00 Intro
01:31 Solar sail as a propulsion method
25:44 Current obsessions
32:00 Final thoughts


📰 GUIDE TO SPACE NEWSLETTER
Read by 70,000 people every Friday. Written by Fraser. No ads.
Subscribe for Free: https://universetoday.com/newsletter

🎧 PODCASTS
Universe Today: https://www.universetoday.com/podcast
Astronomy Cast: http://www.astronomycast.com/

📩 CONTACT FRASER
[email protected]

⚖️ LICENSE
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

You are free to use my work for any purpose you like, just mention me as the source and link back to this video.