Carl Sagan once thought about a concept of a spacecraft powered by solar winds. This spacecraft could utilize solar winds powered by sun rays. This idea is now going to become a reality.

Planetary Society, a non-profit space advocacy group co-founded by Sagan himself, which is now being headed by Bill Nye, has designed LightSail, a spacecraft based on the concept of Sagan. The team behind the development of this spacecraft is also going to test it.

The spacecraft is the size of a loaf of bread having solar sails having the ability to glide through space only through solar winds. “Once in space, LightSail's solar arrays swing open, revealing the inside of the spacecraft. Four tape measure-like metal booms slowly unwind from storage, unfolding four triangular, Mylar sails”, said the society.

On May 20, the test flight will be conducted. The spacecraft would not be set high above earth’s atmosphere for solar sailing. This time, the spacecraft’s sail deployment sequence would be testing, so that it could be made ready for a bigger test flight later.

In April 2016, the society is planning to conduct a test flight in which LightSail’s sunlight harvesting abilities would be assessed. One of the highlighting features of the spacecraft is that it uses renewable energy.

The probe cannot move fast, but it will continue to move faster but the only condition is that it should correctly be steered. Lightweight mirrored surfaces help the spacecraft to have the needed light momentum. When lights reflect off these snails then the maximum amount of momentum is shifted towards pushing on the snails

Resulting acceleration is less, but with time it can reach higher speeds. The probe has the possibility to play a role in long-distance missions.