As a college student in Prague, Tomas Svitek was fascinated by solar sails. It was the 1970s. NASA, the European Space Agency and Japan were all exploring whether solar sails could assist spacecraft missions to rendezvous with Halley's Comet. Although solar sail technology was deemed too immature at the time, Svitek's interest in the concept never waned. More than three decades later, after fleeing Czechoslovakia as a political refugee during the Cold War, Svitek is putting the finishing touches on his solar sail. His small company, Stellar Exploration Inc. of San Louis Obispo, Calif., is the systems integrator for LightSail-1, the Planetary Society's $2.2 million effort to build a kite-shaped, mylar solar sail that fits in a triple cubesat, a standardized satellite bus comprised of three 10-centimeter cubes.
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