Student, professor publish article on solar sails

Amber Dubill ’20 BS/MS (mechanical engineering) is the lead author of a publication in the Acta Astronautica journal along with Grover Swartzlander, professor in the Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science. “Circumnavigating the sun with diffractive solar sails” describes a future space mission that will image the polar regions of the sun for the first time and demonstrates that an ideal diffractive sail is more efficient at reaching the desired orbit than a traditional reflective sail.