If humanity intends to engage in interstellar exploration in the near future, lightsails are currently the best option. This technology, consisting of laser arrays pushing a reflective sail and tiny spacecraft to relativistic speeds (a fraction of the speed of light), is presently the only promising method for sending missions to the nearest stars within a human lifetime. Alas, several major hurdles need to be overcome and technological developments made before any such missions are possible.

These range from developing space-based laser systems and creating materials that can survive the journey through interstellar space to testing proof of concepts in space. According to recently published results, engineers at Cornell University's Space System Design Studio (SDSS) successfully deployed two lightsail experiments - Alpha CubeSat and Sailing to the Stars - from the International Space Station (ISS).

The missions were created as part of the Museum of Science Fiction’s 2016 CubeSat Competition, a design competition for next-generation spacecraft concepts using off-the-shelf technologies. The experiments were funded by NASA's CubeSat Launch Initiative, which launched to the ISS in late 2025 aboard the NG-23 and Crew-11 missions, respectively. Both consist of origami-style lightsails and chip satellites (ChipSat) that were folded for launch (to conserve room for other payloads) and unfurled upon deployment...