It is the first time that China has completed in-orbit testing of critical solar sail technologies.

LIAONING (Reuters) - China’s SIASAIL-I solar sail that carries the Xiaoxiang 1-07, a commercial research nanosatellite, has successfully tested several critical solar sail technologies recently.

It is the first time that China has completed in-orbit testing of critical solar sail technologies, and the test will provide technological support for future solar sail studies.

The solar sail is a spacecraft that is believed to have a high possibility to reach the solar system and beyond. It has the potential of being widely used in asteroid exploration, geomagnetic storm monitoring, solar polar survey, and space debris clearance.

The solar sail is developed by the Shenyang Institute of Automation under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Xiaoxiang 1-07 satellite was developed by Spacety, a privately owned Chinese commercial space company founded in 2016.

The satellite was sent into space successfully by a Kuaizhou-1A carrier rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on August 31, 2019.