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Updated: May 7, 2026

Structural Design and Manufacturing of a Cruiser Class Solar Vehicle
Published on: January 30, 2019
One kilometer (1 km) electric solar wind sail tether produced automatically
Henri Seppänen1, Timo Rauhala, Sergiy Kiprich
1Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 64, FI-00014 Helsinki, Finland.
Abstract:
We produced a 1 km continuous piece of multifilament electric solar wind sail tether of μm-diameter aluminum wires using a custom made automatic tether factory. The tether comprising 90,704 bonds between 25 and 50 μm diameter wires is reeled onto a metal reel. The total mass of 1 km tether is 10 g. We reached a production rate of 70 m/24 h and a quality level of 1‰ loose bonds and 2‰ rebonded ones. We thus demonstrated that production of long electric solar wind sail tethers is possible and practical.
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