ToughSF / Matter Beam spent a lot of the last half-year, it seems, composing this post. He proposes, with materials known to us now, to inject a smallsat into Jovian orbit with no propellant at all. Beyond launching it from Earth or maybe Luna, of course (and Luna, we hope, will have railguns).
Now, I do have to quibble that when we talk "lightness" ratios, we would like to attach some, like... cargo to the sail.
For gravity-assist or redirection, ToughSF considers diving his craft near Io. To get to its +17.3 km/s velocity around Jupiter, ToughSF sees a hybrid engine. I'll go further: once we've dove-en that far into the Jovian well, we also get Jupiter's ionic wind. Sailing on ions rather than on photons is where the "Q" drive shows up. (A future post on which, ToughSF has promised/teased in the comments.)
How about sticking around Jupiter? I'd like to have some smallsats around this system over the span Juno, JUICE, and Europa Clipper are all working there. In particular: that first-order Laplacian +12.475 km/s between Europa and Ganymede. To which end, I'd dump the sail once injected close to Jupiter and raise the magnets instead. Mind, that's a thick antenna, for Earth-contact. Could we send multiple sails to the three Laplacian moons, to assemble something bigger once in that general area?
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