The agency plans to fly a tiny probe known as NanoSail-D, which is scheduled for launch later this month aboard an experimental Falcon 1 rocket, built by Internet entrepreneur Elon Musk‘s new startup, Space Exploration Technologies.

NanoSail is not the primary payload and it will be booted off the launcher rather early in the flight. Because the spacecraft will be left in an elliptical rather than circular orbit around Earth, it will be dragged back into the atmosphere as early as five days after launch.

[…]

If the Voyager probes had solar sails, for example, they would have reached the outer edges of the solar system in about a decade, rather than the 30 years it has taken for them to reach their present locations, Montgomery said.

“If you’re going far away, the sail will eventually get you there sooner,” he said.

Solar sails are most useful where sunlight is strongest — the inner solar system. With sails, satellites could change orbits, hover and steer themselves out of orbit upon completion of their missions to avoid becoming a hazard to other, still operational satellites.

(via discovery channel)