Planetary Society – Spaceflight Now

LightSail team declares success in solar sail experiment

August 1, 2019 Stephen Clark

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 solar sail the size of a boxing ring last week, officials confirmed Wednesday.

Privately-funded spacecraft now solar sailing in Earth orbit

July 26, 2019 Stephen Clark

A nanosatellite launched aboard SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket last month has unfurled a solar sail membrane and is using light pressure from the sun to change its orbit around Earth, pioneering techniques that could be used by future missions traveling to the sun’s stellar neighbors.

LightSail hailed as precursor for low-cost planetary missions

June 10, 2015 Stephen Clark

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 a fraction of the cost of traditional government-backed missions.

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

June 7, 2015 Stephen Clark

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.

Ground team battling on-and-off communications with LightSail

June 6, 2015 Stephen Clark

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.

LightSail deployment set for this week

June 1, 2015 Stephen Clark

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 solar sail as soon as Wednesday.

Citizen-funded CubeSat ready to go solar sailing

May 19, 2015 Stephen Clark

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.