High performance solar sails for linear trajectories and heliostationary missions Original Research Article

High performance solar sails could offer the capability to travel along linear trajectories throughout the solar system and to stop at any desired location, thus providing an `heliostationaryʹ position. A second type of mission would be to release small solar probes which would freely fall into the sun and thus provide in situ information about its corona. Different probes could also be used for fundamental physics experiments. After these probes have been released, the sail part would be even lighter and would then be able to escape the solar system.