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TARS: Sunlight Powered Space Slingshot Could Propel Tiny Probes to the Stars

TARS: Sunlight-Powered Space Slingshot Could Propel Tiny Probes to the Stars

TARS uses sunlight and spinning panels to fling tiny probes into deep space, a new approach to interstellar exploration.

Written by Gadgets 360 Staff | Updated: 10 September 2025 17:43 IST

TARS: Sunlight-Powered Space Slingshot Could Propel Tiny Probes to the Stars

Photo Credit: NASA

TARS concept: solar-powered centrifuge harnessing sunlight for space propulsion

Highlights

TARS uses sunlight and spin to launch tiny probes into space
Concept needs no fuel, just reflective panels and solar pressure
Could inspire cubesat prototypes for future interstellar travel

Scientists have long dreamed of sending tiny spacecraft to other stars, but the challenge remains immense. A new idea called TARS (Torqued Accelerator using Radiation from the Sun), named for the robot in Interstellar, aims to turn fiction into reality by harnessing sunlight as a slingshot. TARS is essentially a solar-powered centrifuge: two long reflective panels on a tether that spin and fling a tiny probe outward at high speed. Unlike rockets or giant lasers, this design needs no exotic fuel, only sunlight and engineering.

Solar-Powered Space Slingshot

According to the paper published in arXiv, the design of TARS by Kipping, professor of astronomy at Columbia University, uses two reflective panels on long booms, forming a giant rotating slingshot in space. Sunlight pushes on the shiny sides of these panels (much like a solar sail), causing the whole system to spin faster and faster.

After months or years of rotation, a small probe attached to the edge is released like a stone from a sling. In one example, 7-meter-wide panels spun for three years could fling a probe at about 7.5 miles (12 km) per second, enough to escape the Sun's gravity with orbital boost.

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Voyage to the Stars

Even at about 0.3% of light speed, it would take over a thousand years to reach Alpha Centauri (4.3 light-years away). Kipping notes such voyages are inherently multi-generational, a “progressive” endeavor. He notes even engineering students could build a prototype.

This simplicity has drawn attention: one team offered a free launch if someone builds a cubesat-scale prototype. This sun-powered slingshot joins other ambitious ideas—like laser-driven lightsails—to explore whether tiny probes can one day reach the stars. Kipping argues every idea is worthwhile, since “some combination of them will get us to the stars.”

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