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posted by chromas on Thursday June 20 2019, @11:59PM   Printer-friendly
from the hunting-fruit-pastries dept.

One Legacy of Carl Sagan may Take Flight Next Week-A Working Solar Sail:

As early as next Monday night, a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket will launch a cluster of 24 satellites for the US Air Force. Known as the Space Test Program-2 mission, the rocket will deposit its payloads into three different orbits. Perhaps the most intriguing satellite will be dropped off at the second stop—a circular orbit 720km above the Earth's surface. This is the Planetary Society's LightSail 2 spacecraft.

After a week in space, allowing the satellites deposited in this orbit to drift apart, LightSail 2 will eject from its carrying case into open space. About the size of a loaf of bread, the 5-kg satellite will eventually unfurl into a solar sail 4 meters long by 5.6 meters tall. The Mylar material composing the sail is just 4.5 microns thick, or about one-tenth as thick as a human hair.

This experiment, which will attempt to harness the momentum of photons and "sail" through space, is the culmination of decades of work by The Planetary Society. "This goes back to the very beginning, to Carl Sagan, Bruce Murray and Lou Friedman," the organization's chief executive, Bill Nye, told Ars in an interview. "We are carrying on a legacy that has been with us since the founders. It's just an intriguing technology because it lowers the cost of going all over the place in the Solar System."

There were two prior attempts by the Planetary Society at deploying light sails. In 2005, the first stage of the rocket launching Cosmos 1 failed. In 2015, LightSail 1 was able to achieve orbit but experienced several technical difficulties from which lessons were learned and used to inform the design of this upcoming attempt with LightSail 2.

More details about the process can be found at the Planetary Society.


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  • (Score: 1) by anubi on Friday June 21 2019, @01:29AM

    by anubi (2828) on Friday June 21 2019, @01:29AM (#858367) Journal

    Jack Vance wrote Sail 25 in 1962.

    If you ever read it, you won't forget Henry Belt.

    --
    "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]