Sailing on sunlight.
Can sunlight push a spacecraft?
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Can sunlight push a spacecraft?
Fit the booms, film and payload before illuminating the sail.
Photons carry momentum. Reflection changes that momentum, giving a sail a small steady force. The effect works without carrying propellant and is caused by light, not solar wind. Farther from the Sun, less light reaches each square metre. Tilting the sail changes its projected area and the direction of the force.
Perfect reflecting flat sail; irradiance 1361 W/m² at 1 AU, light speed 299792458 m/s. Fn=2IAcos²θ/c and radial force=Fncosθ. No absorption, thermal re-emission, solar wind, eclipses, attitude dynamics or orbit propagation. A gimbal-mounted miniature shows incidence.
Produce at least 80 µm/s² of radial acceleration without propellant.
Compare photon-driven acceleration with distance, angle and payload mass.