lightsail
Latest
LightSail 2 successfully demonstrates solar sailing
LightSail 2 is faring much better than its ill-fated predecessor. The Planetary Society has verified that LightSail 2 successfully raised its orbit using solar sailing, making it the first small spacecraft to demonstrate the concept (though Japan's IKAROS was the first of any kind to fly). The team is now focused on raising the solar sailer's orbit for about a month's time as it continues to improve sail control through software updates and new techniques.
Solar-powered LightSail spacecraft is ready for its second flight
When the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket launches this summer, it will carry the Planetary Society's Carl Sagan-inspired LightSail 2. You may remember LightSail as a crowdfunded, experimental "solar sail." The unique craft looks something like a giant kite, and it was envisioned as a way to guide satellites around space using energy from the sun, rather than chemical fuel. The first LightSail took flight in 2015, and now the Planetary Society is ready to launch LightSail 2, which has worked out a few bugs and will provide an opportunity to further test solar sailing.
'Starshot' plan gets probes to Alpha Centauri in your lifetime
The concept of exploring other star systems with probes (and not just telescopes) has proven elusive for one good reason: even the fastest spacecraft would take 30,000 years just to reach Alpha Centauri, our closest neighboring star. However, investor and space project enthusiast Yuri Milner thinks it's possible to do better. He and physicist Stephen Hawking have launched Breakthrough Starshot, a $100 million program that aims to get probes to Alpha Centauri within a generation. If all goes well, the observers would reach the relatively close-by system (4.4 light years away) within 20 years of leaving Earth.
LightSail solar spaceship ends test flight in fiery descent
And just like that, LightSail's inaugural flight is over. The Planetary Society has determined that its experimental solar sailer likely entered Earth's atmosphere (and met a fiery end) near the South Atlantic Ocean at 1:23PM Eastern on Monday. Don't bemoan the fate of the Carl Sagan-inspired spacecraft, however. While LightSail ran into more than a little trouble on its 25-day run, its mission was ultimately a success -- the only real goal was to deploy the ship's namesake sails and prove that the vehicle was spaceworthy. The real challenge comes late in 2016, when the Society expects to fly a second model that will actually use its photon-powered sails to get around.
LightSail sends back photo of deployed solar sails
A series of computer problems and battery glitches make LightSail's victorious unfurling of solar sails extra sweet. Now, we have a sailfie (*groan*) of the spacecraft with its wings proudly rolled out and a view of the sun to prove that it really did successfully deploy its wings in low-Earth orbit on June 7th. LightSail's ground crew is even currently downloading a second image captured from the opposite side, possibly with Earth in the background. The engineers might still increase the tension of the sails in the next few days, so they could look flatter than in the picture above. After that, they'll be analyzing the images and the sails' tensioning results in preparation for the vessel's first major mission in 2016, which was partly crowdfunded via KickStarter.
Carl Sagan's solar spacecraft finally deploys its sails
The Planetary Society's LightSail spacecraft just dodged another bullet -- the ground crew has not only regained contact with the Carl Sagan-inspired ship, but managed to deploy its sails. It's still not clear just what rendered the vessel silent last week. However, the Society suspects that there might have been a "ping-pong effect" where LightSail's batteries got too little power in the darkness, and too much in sunlight. In short, the machine might not have had a chance to operate normally until now.
The LightSail solar spacecraft is in dire straits once again (update: it's back!)
Unfortunately, the LightSail spacecraft's recovery wasn't quite as miraculous as its creators first thought. The Planetary Society reports that it hasn't heard back from its sailer since Wednesday, shortly after the vehicle deployed its solar panels. The ground crew suspects that the failure might be due to a battery glitch, since the energy cells largely stopped drawing a current after the panels deployed. Attempts to wake up LightSail with "blind" commands (that is, without confirmed contact) haven't helped, so there's no simple fix.
LightSail solar spacecraft gets back in touch with its ground crew
If you were on pins and needles wondering whether or not the LightSail solar ship would resume contact with the crew back on Earth, you can relax. The Planetary Society reports that the Carl Sagan-inspired spacecraft rebooted as predicted, and the ground team is once again in touch. There's already a software fix waiting in the wings, and there will be a decision on when to deploy it "very soon" -- if all goes according to plan, the Society will deploy the vehicle's namesake sails soon afterward. You'll know more in the next two days, but for now it appears that this years-long project is back on track.
Carl Sagan's solar-powered spacecraft is in trouble (update: it's alive!)
The test flight of Carl Sagan's LightSail craft is in jeopardy after a computer problem left it unable to communicate with its mission controllers. According to the Planetary Society, the hardware was launched into space with an older version of its Linux-based operating system, which shipped with a serious glitch. As the vehicle circuits the planet, it's meant to send back a packet of data, but over the first two days, this file grew too big for the system to handle. As such, it crashed, although we mean that in the software sense, rather than the coming-back-to-Earth-with-a-bump sense.
Bill Nye goes to Kickstarter to fund Sagan's solar-powered spacecraft
The LightSail is blasting off to space (along with the X37B drone) for a test flight on May 20th, but the project still needs a lot more money for its first major mission in 2016. To be precise, Bill Nye and The Planetary Society still need a hefty $1.2 million, part of which they're now trying to raise via Kickstarter. The team set a more realistic $200,000 goal, but they do have stretch goals up until $1 million, which will cover the construction, testing and deployment of the final version, as well as LightSail's operations in space for a few months. Obviously, you can't get one of solar-powered spacecraft as a reward for backing the project, so you'll have to make do with posters, jackets and signed paraphernalia.
Carl Sagan's solar-powered spacecraft is getting its first test flight
Legendary astronomer Carl Sagan once envisioned a solar sailer, a spaceship that uses sunlight radiation to push itself through the solar system much like a boat relies on the wind. Decades later, his project is about to become a practical reality. The Planetary Society (which was co-founded by Sagan) has scheduled the first test flight for just such a solar vehicle, the LightSail, on May 20th. This initial run will see if the craft can successfully deploy its four Mylar sails. It won't be in a high-enough orbit to harvest the Sun's energy, but the experiment should pave the way for an honest-to-goodness sailing test in April 2016.
