The Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) has developed a solar sail (pictured) usable like a sail on a spacecraft. (KARI)

By Park Hye Ri

A domestic think tank has developed a "solar sail" to power spacecraft using solar winds.

The Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) on Feb. 13 said it developed and demonstrated the prototype of a solar sail deployment device. Since June last year, KARI has studied technology for solar diffraction propulsion for navigating spacecraft.

The solar sail generates power by using photons emitted by the sun, similar to how a sailboat uses wind. By doing so, a spacecraft can travel in space for a long time without a separate power source.

The KARI-developed sail measures 10 m both horizontally and vertically, bigger than the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System of NASA released in April last year, and is also light being made of aluminum-evaporated PET film 12 micrometers thick.

Measuring 31.4 tall and weighing 10 kg, the deployment device helps unfold the sail in space, folds and stores a sail 10 m wide and long to within 20 cm, and can be mounted on a 12U CubeSat, or a class of nanosatellites using a standard size and form factor.

The institute said its sail technology can be applied not only to deep space exploration but also solving the problem of space waste in low Earth orbit.

KARI President Lee Sang-cheol said, "We will continue researching creative application areas of our homegrown solar sail deployment device to boost our nation's capacity for deep space exploration and apply to many space activities."

hrhr@korea.kr