Editing Solar sail (section)

===Fabrication===
Sails are fabricated on Earth on long tables where ribbons are unrolled and joined to create the sails. Sail material needed to have as little weight as possible because it would require the use of the shuttle to carry the craft into orbit. Thus, these sails are packed, launched, and unfurled in space.<ref>Rowe, W. m. 'Sail film materials and supporting structure for a solar sail, a preliminary design, volume 4." Jet Propulsion Lab. California, Pasadena, California.</ref>

In the future, fabrication could take place in orbit inside large frames that support the sail.  This would result in lower mass sails and elimination of the risk of deployment failure.