Editing Solar sail (section)

===Trajectory corrections===
The [[MESSENGER]] probe orbiting [[Mercury (planet)|Mercury]] used light pressure on its solar panels to perform fine trajectory corrections on the way to Mercury.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/news_room/details.php?id=102 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130514095117/http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/news_room/details.php?id=102 |url-status=dead |archive-date=2013-05-14 |title=MESSENGER Sails on Sun's Fire for Second Flyby of Mercury |date=2008-09-05 |quote=On September 4, the MESSENGER team announced that it would not need to implement a scheduled maneuver to adjust the probe's trajectory. This is the fourth time this year that such a maneuver has been called off. The reason? A recently implemented navigational technique that makes use of solar-radiation pressure (SRP) to guide the probe has been extremely successful at maintaining MESSENGER on a trajectory that will carry it over the cratered surface of Mercury for a second time on October 6.}}</ref> By changing the angle of the solar panels relative to the Sun, the amount of solar radiation pressure was varied to adjust the spacecraft trajectory more delicately than possible with thrusters. Minor errors are greatly amplified by [[gravity assist]] maneuvers, so using radiation pressure to make very small corrections saved large amounts of propellant.