Scientists have proposed building a fleet of sailing spaceships

In the new paper, the scientists described the hardware needed to build a miniature spacecraft weighing about ten grams using a one-square-metre solar sail whose configuration is controlled by microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) with worm gears. The small size of the sail, which is attached to the hull using carbon fibre filaments, allows the ship to be more manoeuvrable.

An example of possible missions could be to collect comet dust samples at relatively low speeds to reduce the risk of organic matter breakdown.