That's (hopefully) not necessary. The main idea for braking is detaching the sail from the payload, then the sail focuses the light on a smaller sail/surface on

That's (hopefully) not necessary. The main idea for braking is detaching the sail from the payload, then the sail focuses the light on a smaller sail/surface on payload's forward end to brake it. Besides, let's not get ahead of ourselves with interstellar missions. Scaling this all down for intrasystem propulsion would be great as well. Anyone liked what New Horizons has shown? How about sending one small probe to Pluto per month (with travel time measured in months/weeks instead of years)?