2026 NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts Symposium: Part 2 — Solar sails and breathing beyond Earth

Sarah Al-Ahmed (0:04)

Part 2 of the 2026 NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts Symposium, this week on Planetary Radio.

I'm Sarah Al-Ahmed of the Planetary Society, with more of the human adventure across our solar system and beyond.

Last week, we explored the technologies being developed to reach some of the most inaccessible places in our solar system. This week, it's more about how we get there. I'll share three more conversations from the 2026 NIAC Symposium at Wichita State University, featuring a new solar sail architecture that could send low-cost probes to the outer planets and interstellar space. A thin-film nuclear engine rocket that could catch interstellar objects, and a clever new approach to producing oxygen and microgravity for long-duration space missions. Plus, Bruce Betts, Chief Scientist of Planetary Society and I are going to look forward to the launch of the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency's Martian Moon Exploration Mission, MMX. It's set to lift off in just about two weeks on a journey that's going to bring back the first samples from the Mars system. If you love Planetary Radio and want to stay informed about the latest space discoveries, make sure you hit that subscribe button on your favorite podcasting platform. By subscribing, you'll never miss an episode filled with new and awe-inspiring ways to know the cosmos and our place within it.

If you caught last week's episode, you're already familiar with what the NIAC Symposium is all about. If not, I'd recommend going back and listening to part one where I explain the program and share three conversations with some of the NIAC fellows. We talk about exploring caves on Titan, lunar lava tubes, and exploring some of the moon's darkest craters. I've had the privilege of hosting the NIAC Symposium webcast for the last four years, and this week we're going to pick up where we left off at the September 15th through 17th Symposium at Wichita State University. First up is Dr. Artur Davoyan, Associate Professor at UCLA and a returning NIAC fellow. His earlier work on extreme solar sailing went all the way to phase two, exploring how a close solar flyby could propel spacecraft to near relativistic speeds. But now he's back with a new phase one concept called Coilable Stacked Solar Sails. For those who may not be familiar, a solar sail is exactly what it sounds like. Instead of wind, it uses the pressure of sunlight hitting a large reflective surface to push the spacecraft forward, no fuel required. It's a concept that the Planetary Society helped prove with our light sail two mission. But scaling these sails up to sizes needed for deep space exploration has been one of the biggest challenges in the field. And that's exactly the problem that Artur is trying to solve.

We're about to talk about something that is near and dear to my heart with Artur Davoyan from UCLA, the University of California, Los Angeles. Nice to see another fellow, Angelino.

Artur Davoyan (2:57)

Thank you very much, Sarah, and a great pleasure to be here.

Sarah Al-Ahmed (3:00)

So I come from the Planetary Society, and something that we did a few years ago is that we created a solar sail, the light sail two mission. It was the first fully crowdfunded space mission ever. And the second solar sail to actually achieve that kind of flight, right? All the credit goes to the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency's IKAROS mission.

But I'm really excited to hear about what you guys have tried to accomplish with this concept, because there are some limitations, as we found out with our project. And I think what you're proposing will solve a lot of that. But before we go into Coilable Stacked Solar Sails, I want to acknowledge your previous NIAC projects on extreme solar sailing that actually went to phase two. Can you talk about how that project has led to you getting to this moment now with your new NIAC proposal?

Artur Davoyan (3:49)

Sure, sure, absolutely. So first of all, we are very much inspired by light sail. Light sail two, it's a great effort. And I want to mention that although the Japanese Space Agency did a great job in sending interplanetary spacecraft, light sail two was lighter and more capable in that sense.

And it showed that you can do small, low-cost missions, which is very important. You know, something that is new. We had several NIACs on solar sailing. So the first one was on extreme solar sailing that we were thinking of, which was to send the spacecraft very close to the sun. And to do two things, either to explore the solar polar regions, like, you know, to go to very high inclination orbits, like polar orbits, or, you know, more than 50 degrees, something that is not possible with any other spacecraft.