A group of researchers is ready to send the world’s first solar sail spacecraft in space on Tuesday at 12:46 p.m. PDT (1746 GMT).

The spacecraft, codenamed Cosmos 1, is a $4 million privately funded operation by Ann Druyan’s entertainment company and by contributions from Planetary Society members and Peter Lewis, a Philanthropist. The concept behind this experiment is to test if light can power unlimited space exploration. The concept is sponsored by the Planetary Society located in Pasadena, California and comes from Science Fiction works that entail the possibility of sailing to stars by a never-ending light source, possibly from Sun.

"It is very promising technology but one that nobody is really pursuing into space. All we are trying to do is to demonstrate that the technology can work," said Emily Lakdawalla, Project Operations Assistant.

Researchers believe with sunlight as Cosmos 1’s fuel, it would be able to explore unimaginable distances. The Cosmos 1 will be propelled into the orbit via a constant stream of photons bouncing of the interior of the spacecraft. Researchers also believe the spacecraft’s speed would increase as it further enters space.

The project was started by Carl Sagan, a science fiction author, and Louis Friedman, who proposed an idea to send a solar sail spacecraft with Halley’s comet in the 1970s when he was also working at NASA.

Researchers said they would fill the sail’s four 49-foot segments with streams of photons to send it further in space.

Cosmos 1 is built by Russian spacecraft contractor NPO Lavochkin and will be launched from a Russian submarine in Barents Sea at the tip of intercontinental ballistics missile. The boost from a kick-motor will be used to send the 220.5-pound spacecraft in the orbit where it’s expected to revolve around the Earth for approximately one month once every 100 minutes.

Space agencies throughout the globe have depicted interest in the project. NASA said Cosmos 1 might send data that is useful to the agency.