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Posted by: K-P Jan 8 2013, 03:39 PM

Some update concerning this project...

http://www.uusisuomi.fi/tiede-ja-ymparisto/56232-valtava-lapimurto-suomalaisten-avaruuspurjeen-h-hetki-maaliskuussa

No worries, I will translate.

So, in short:
They have now managed to create a 1 kilometer long electric sail tether with ultrasound welding at Helsinki University in Finland. So they are approaching their target lengths for the full scale system.

Also, the launch of the first prototype (with 10m tether) is now scheduled for March this year and it will ride with Estonian EstCube-1 satellite.
https://sites.google.com/a/estcube.eu/estonian-student-satellite-program/estcube-1

Next prototype with 100m tether will ride with Finnish Aalto-1 satellite, propably in 2014. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aalto-1

More info about the project also at http://www.electric-sailing.fi/index.html


Here's also one older article about it:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=spacecraft-solar-sail

"...because the electric solar wind sail, or e-sail, concept offers the opportunity to field truly enormous virtual sails as much as 40 kilometers across, it could enable the development of the fastest man-made objects ever flown—perhaps at speeds around 50 kilometers per second, says its chief inventor, Pekka Janhunen, a research manager at the Finnish Meteorological Institute in Helsinki."


edit:
Ok, now I've found also English article about it,
http://phys.org/news/2013-01-space-one-kilometer-long-electric-tether.html