Tag: Planetary Society

  • LightSail team declares success in solar sail experiment

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    This image was taken by a camera aboard the LightSail 2 satellite during the solar sail deployment sequence at 1849 GMT (2:49 p.m. EDT) on Tuesday, July 23. Credit: The Planetary Society The gentle push of sunlight is slowly changing the orbit of the Planetary Society’s crowd-funded LightSail 2 satellite after it unfurled a thin…

  • Privately-funded spacecraft now solar sailing in Earth orbit

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    This image was taken by a camera aboard the LightSail 2 satellite during the solar sail deployment sequence at 1848 GMT (2:48 p.m. EDT) on Tuesday, July 23, over Baja California. Credit: The Planetary Society A nanosatellite launched aboard SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket last month has unfurled a solar sail membrane and is using light…

  • LightSail hailed as precursor for low-cost planetary missions

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    A camera aboard LightSail took this picture of the deployed solar sail. Credit: The Planetary Society Managers in charge of the privately-funded LightSail solar sail in Earth orbit said Wednesday the success of the experiment is a step toward opening up the solar system to scores of modest science probes that could explore space at…

  • Satellite comes back to life, deploys solar sail on second try

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    Artist’s concept of LightSail backdropped by the Milky Way galaxy. Credit: The Planetary Society Mission managers say the shoebox-sized LightSail satellite powered up its tiny deployment motor Sunday, and data from the diminutive spacecraft indicate its experimental solar sail unfurled in orbit hundreds of miles above Earth. The deployment sequence began at 3:47 p.m. EDT…

  • Ground team battling on-and-off communications with LightSail

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    LightSail’s solar sail undergoes a deployment test on the ground in September 2014. Credit: Justin Foley/The Planetary Society After an up-and-down week of intermittent contact with the LightSail satellite, the tiny spacecraft radioed home Saturday, giving engineers hope to deploy the experiment’s solar sail as soon as Sunday. The deployment window opens at approximately 2:02…

  • LightSail deployment set for this week

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    Updated June 2. Artist’s concept of the LightSail spacecraft after deployment of the solar sail. Credit: The Planetary Society The Planetary Society’s LightSail spacecraft is back in contact with ground controllers after nine days of radio silence triggered by a suspected software glitch, and engineers plan to send the command to unfurl the tiny satellite’s…

  • Citizen-funded CubeSat ready to go solar sailing

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    Credit: Josh Spradling / The Planetary Society A shoebox-sized satellite conceived and funded by members of the Planetary Society, an advocacy organization co-founded by Carl Sagan, is fastened to an Atlas 5 rocket for launch Wednesday to test one of the late celebrity-astronomer’s futuristic concepts for exploring the cosmos. Sagan and other proponents of solar…