solar sail.

A large reflective surface that uses the momentum of sunlight to provide thrust to a spacecraft.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• deploy a solar sail
• a reflective solar sail
• solar-sail propulsion

On the page

The solar sail unfurled slowly, bright enough to overwhelm the tracking camera.

They changed the solar sail's orientation to alter the direction of its thrust.

Usage notes

Primary category: sci-fi. Forms: Singular solar sail; plural solar sails. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings.