If going farther afield, Manchester and colleagues have considered using ChipSats as solar sails.

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M2P2 has a few drawbacks compared with conventional solar sails.

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Similarly in 1992 the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) put forward the idea of launching 55, 000 "solar sails" into orbit around the Earth, each with an area of 100 square kilometers, the sails collectively producing the same effect as Early's single glass panel.

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It suffered from short-circuits, faulty radio and power systems, an unreliable tape-recorder, a sticky camera platform, and the loss of much of the gas that supplied its stabilising thrusters a problem overcome by repositioning its solar panels and main antenna so that they acted as solar sails, stabilising the probe via the gentle pressure of sunlight.

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And on the sails, a coating of solar panels would trap energy from the sun.

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