Trips to Mars have already taken place several times, but always with some delay and never with a crew. All of this could change thanks to technological advances. 
Joana Campos Meteorized Portugal 02/10/2023 11:00 7 min
A new study, published in the journal Acta Astronautica, explores the possibility of using airbrushed “solar sails” to travel to Mars and interstellar space, ce, which would significantly reduce the time and fuel required for such missions.
This study comes at a time when many organizations are currently conducting research into the use of shade sails. like the Planetary Society’s LightSail2 mission, which was crowned with success.
“Solar sail propulsion offers the possibility of transporting small payloads (less than one kilogram) quickly through the solar system.” explains René Heller, astrophysicist at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research and co-author of the study.
“Compared to traditional chemical propulsion, which can launch hundreds of tons of payload into low Earth orbit and transport much of that payload to the Moon, Mars and beyond, this seems ridiculously small.” But the main value of solar sail technology is speed.”
Awning: what is it?
Unlike traditional rockets, which rely on fuel in the form of burning chemicals to apply an external force to the tail of the spacecraft, Solar sails do not require fuel. As a matter of fact, Huge sails capture solar photons in the same way that sailboats catch the wind as they move on the water.
The longer the solar sails are on, the more solar photons they capture, gradually increasing the spacecraft’s speed.
For this study, researchers conducted simulations of the speed at which an airbrush shade sail with a mass of up to 1 kilogram, including 720 grams of airbrush with a cross-section of 104 square meters, could reach Mars and the interstellar medium, also called the heliopause, via two trajectories from Earth, aThis method is called the direct outward transfer method or the inward transfer method.
The direct outward transfer method, for both travel to Mars and the heliopause, was to place the solar sail and send it directly from a polar orbit around the Earth.
Simulation results
The researchers therefore determined that Mars was in opposition (directly opposite the Earth in relation to the Sun) at the time of the solar sail’s launch and departure from Earth would provide the best results in terms of both speed and travel time.
The same polar takeoff and departure trajectory was also used for the heliopause trajectory. The inward transfer method would use conventional chemical rockets to propel the solar sail about 0.6 astronomical units (AU) from the sun. where the solar sail would be launched and begin its journey to Mars or the heliopause. But how can an airbrush shade sail make this trip more viable?
“With its low density of 0.18 kg per cubic meter “Airbrush is inferior to all conventional materials for solar sails,” explains Julius Karlapp, research assistant at the Technical University of Dresden and lead author of the study.
Through these simulations, researchers found that they are the direct outward transfer method and the inward transfer method allowed the solar sail to reach Mars in 26 and 126 days, respectively, with the first 103 days corresponding to the duration of the journey from Earth to the starting point at 0.6 AU.
The current duration of the journey to Mars varies between 7 and 9 months, which is not the case that during certain launch windows every two years based on the position of the two planets at the time of launch and upon arrival of a spacecraft heading to or from Mars.
Journey to the heliopause
For the trip to the heliopause, the two methods resulted in 5.3 and 4.2 years, respectively, with the first 103 days of the inward transfer method also dedicated to travel time between Earth and the deployment site at 0.6 AU.
The reason why the heliopause is reached faster with the inward transfer method is that the solar sail reaches its maximum speed in 300 days, while with the forward transfer method it takes about 2 years to reach the maximum speed.
NASA’s Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes, which reached the heliopause about 35 and 41 years ago, respectively, Allow us to estimate the current duration of the journey towards the heliopause.
The researchers note that one of the main problems with using solar sails is lag or slowdown. upon arrival at the destination, especially Mars, and although they mention aerocapture as a solution, They admit it still needs to be investigated.
Although NASA proposed solar sail technology back in the 1970s, A current example of this technology is NASA’s Solar Cruiser. The launch is currently scheduled for February 2025.