We've previously covered the Lightsail projects tribulations... Now there is better news.
Washington Post reports:
Since launching on May 20, the Planetary Society's solar sail prototype -- called LightSail and inspired by an idea Carl Sagan championed decades ago -- hasn't exactly had smooth seas.
A glitch made the tiny satellite holding the folded sail unreachable from Earth for a time. Even after communications were re-established, it took days to get the spacecraft to do the one thing it was sent up to do -- deploy its sail, proving that a propulsion system thinner than human hair could be packed away and unfurled safely in space.
On June 7, the Planetary Society reports, the sail finally unfurled.
Original announcement straight from Planetary Society can be found here.
Original Submission
Related Stories
Covered at Sen is the news that a software glitch is causing problems for the Light Sail project launched by the Planetary Society
The privately funded Planetary Society, a California-based space exploration advocacy group, has not been in communication with its LightSail since Friday, two days after it hitched a ride to orbit aboard an Atlas 5 rocket carrying the U.S. Air Force’s X-37B robotic mini shuttle.
This is also covered at the Planetary Society blog:
It is now believed that a vulnerability in the software controlling the main avionics board halted spacecraft operations, leaving a reboot as the only remedy to continue the mission. When that occurs, the team will likely initiate a manual sail deployment as soon as possible.
...
The manufacturer of the avionics board corrected this glitch in later software revisions. But alas, LightSail’s software version doesn’t include the update.
The team are hoping for a reboot to bring the device back to life, either from a ground transmission or charged particle glitch, although attempts to reboot from the ground look to have failed to date.
Cal Poly is automating the reboot command transmission to be sent every few ground station passes, on the hope that one command sneaks through (we don't send the command on every pass because a successful reboot triggers a waiting period before beacon transmissions begin). But as of right now, we can’t do much except wait, hoping a charged particle smacks the spacecraft in just the right way to cause a reboot. LightSail is capable of remaining in orbit about six months in its CubeSat form.
Additional background on the project is available in a previous SN article, and ongoing updates at the mission control page for the LightSail project.
[Editor's Comment: Original Submission]
An update at the Planetary Society homepage is reporting that the LightSail has reopened communications following a suspected software glitch.
"Based upon the on-board timers contained within the beacon (and comparing them to beacons following deployment), it appears that a reboot occurred within the past day," wrote Georgia Tech professor David Spencer, LightSail's mission manager.
[...] LightSail is not out of the woods yet. Its exact position remains fuzzy, complicating two-way communication.
This is an update to the previous article on the LightSail software problem.
LightSail 2 Sends Back 1st Signals from Its Solar-Surfing Test Flight
The space advocacy organization The Planetary Society recently confirmed that its LightSail 2 spacecraft has sent its first signals home from space.
The roughly 11-lb. (5 kilograms) cubesat is designed to prove that solar sailing is a feasible way of keeping satellites moving. Fuel is a costly and heavy commodity, and if LightSail 2 can prove that the solar-powered technique works well, perhaps future missions into the deep reaches of the solar system and beyond can be propelled by the charged particles released by the sun.
The project launched into space last week (June 25) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy megarocket. On Tuesday (July 2), the bread-loaf-size LightSail 2 experiment left Prox-1, its carrier vehicle. LightSail 2 will ultimately open up its ultrathin four-panel sail to achieve a surface area about the size of a boxing ring.
[...] Once the cubesat deploys its solar sail early next week, the rays from the sun will give LightSail 2 a gentle push. The goal is to observe LightSail 2 over the course of a month to see if it shifts in its orbit by a measurable amount, according to The Planetary Society officials. That will help demonstrate that solar sailing is an effective satellite-propulsion technique.
In other news, 'Oumuamua is not an alien light sail, probably.
See also: What's the Difference between LightSail 1 and LightSail 2?
First Contact! LightSail 2 Phones Home to Mission Control
See the Latest Data from LightSail 2 on Our New Mission Control Dashboard (here)
Previously: Planetary Society's "LightSail" Solar Sail Test Launch on May 20
Lightsail Update: Back in Communication
Planetary Society's LightSail Has Finally Deployed After Multiple Setbacks
One Legacy of Carl Sagan May Take Flight Next Week—a Working Solar Sail
Falcon Heavy to Launch STP-2; 4-Hour Window Opens @ 2019-06-25 2:30am EDT (2019-06-25 0630 UTC)
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @04:25PM
In other news, just after the light sail was deployed, someone switched off the light.
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Tuesday June 09 2015, @05:38PM
If someone can switch off the sun, I'm worrying about much more than the lightsail.
(Score: 2) by Anne Nonymous on Tuesday June 09 2015, @08:25PM
Hey, it happens twice a day.
(Score: 2) by Covalent on Tuesday June 09 2015, @05:41PM
The difficulties of interstellar travel are nearly insurmountable, but this is definitely a step in the right direction. Seems to me an enormous sail is not only one of the best, cheapest ways to get from here to there (for very large values of "there"), but also could double as an enormous dish receiver / transmitter. If you send a probe to another star, getting signals back and forth will be really hard and require an enormous dish. According to the googs, the maximum speed a solar sail can achieve is about 0.1c, which would mean decadal time scales to the nearest stars, and centuries to potential extrasolar goldilocks planets (not to mention the years required for the data to return at the speed of light).
Space is just SO big...http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/33085.html
You can't rationally argue somebody out of a position they didn't rationally get into.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @05:55PM
What the fuck are you talking about?
You don't need a bigger dish. All you need to do is send out one probe each year along the same trajectory, and they relay the transmissions through one another. They chain together to eliminate the distance between Earth and the first probe.
It's like a good old fashioned San Francisco daisy chain: the guy at the very back can transmit AIDS over large distances by relaying it through numerous intermediaries to the guy at the front of the chain.
(Score: 2) by Covalent on Tuesday June 09 2015, @06:08PM
I know...don't feed the trolls, but this is just too stupid to be allowed to live.
The cost of a bigger sail is vastly cheaper than the daisy chain you foolishly propose. While an array of satellites in the solar system will probably be required to receive these signals, this would still be orders of magnitude cheaper than sending a string of probes.
I don't usually mod when I post...but when I do, I downmod morons like you.
You can't rationally argue somebody out of a position they didn't rationally get into.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @06:12PM
For a moment I thought I was back at Slashdot. That's the kind of immature name calling that I'd expect out of them, not out of the people here.
(Score: 1) by AnonymousCowardNoMore on Tuesday June 09 2015, @06:15PM
Cruise speed depends on the cargo. A solar sail with a decent-to-high lightness factor deployed at a very low perihelion (~0.01AU is probably the minimum achievable due to overheating) would accelerate at between about 1g and 700g(!). The structural loads involved will limit the final cruise speed depending on the payload, ~0.003c if you plan on bringing meatbags.*
To make matters worse you will need some sort of super-strong tether material, perhaps diamond or CNT, a highly reflective sail coating for realistic temperatures and ablative shielding on the probe itself as well as some sort of occulter to prevent the sail from being ripped apart while it deploys at perhelion.
Large sunlight-pumped lasers positioned near Mercury could give you much higher speed but I'm not optimistic. Our civilisation would not spend such amounts of power on space probes even if it were available and there would be the whole weapons of mass destruction angle. Many calculations assume more power in the lasers than current world power consumption.
I strongly support this type of technology for exploration of Kuiper belt and Oort cloud objects. Interstellar travel may be something to think about in future but is a pipe dream right now.
* According to The Starflight Handbook: A Pioneer's Guide to Interstellar Travel by Mallove & Matloff. (1989)
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @05:44PM
Watch out, people! Take cover!
Another shitty, biased submission from gewg_ has been detected in the queue: "SWAT Team Destroys Man's Home with Explosives, Ram in Pursuit of Shoplifter"
Yep, it's yet another shitty submission linking to AlterNet.
It's also riddled with "[...]". It's never a good sign when a submission so selectively picks and chooses content like that. It makes intelligent readers question why so much manipulation is taking place.
Do the right thing, editors. Toss that rubbish submission into the rubbish bin!
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Tuesday June 09 2015, @05:50PM
So, you go to another thread to post offtopic ranting about it. Thus drawing more attention to it.
Uh. Why do I suspect that you're actually gewg_ doing some advertising for your post?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @05:58PM
Meta discussion about Soylent News and pending submissions is on-topic in any and every topic. Anyone who mods down such discussion has moderated abusively.
Obviously the point is to draw attention to that submission. That way the editors can throw it out right away, without risking such shit ending up on the front page, like has happened so often recently.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @10:35PM
I suspect that you're actually gewg_ doing some advertising for your post
Careful, now. You're giving me ideas. 8-)
...and the submission in question has as key points EXPLOSIVES and A BATTERING RAM.
You don't even have to buy a theater ticket or look in TV Guide!
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Wednesday June 10 2015, @06:30PM
"EXPLOSIVES and A BATTERING RAM. You don't even have to buy a theater ticket "
So... You're saying you're really Michael Bay in disguise? Who'da thunk it. ;)
(Score: 3, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday June 09 2015, @06:10PM
You've got the hots for gewg_, right? I don't know which way he swings. Do you want me to ask him for you? I've got a better idea though. If you make better submissions than he does, you'll catch his attention, along with his envy and admiration. And, all the rest of us can sit around and watch your bromance develop.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @06:15PM
What's with all of the homoeroticism here? Why can't we discuss astronomy without people like you bringing sodomy and penises into the discussion?
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Tuesday June 09 2015, @09:27PM
The original poster struck me as kind of an asshole though, so he's obviously male*, but to be fair, I assume none of us actually know whether gewg_ is male or female.
* I read that on tumblr.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @10:51PM
I've mentioned before [soylentnews.org] that I'm male.
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday June 09 2015, @06:47PM
Why don't you go through the editor training to learn how they do it, then you can put in some time as an editor yourself to make the articles better.
Or you can scour the internet to find better submissions for the queue.
It's just that easy.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2, Informative) by pTamok on Tuesday June 09 2015, @08:02PM
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/2015/20150608-sails-in-space.html [planetary.org]