LightSail 2 Has Been Flying for 30 Months Now, Paving the Way for Future Solar Sail Missions

upstart writes:

LightSail 2 has been flying for 30 months now, paving the way for future solar sail missions:

Even after 30 months in space, The Planetary Society's LightSail 2 mission continues to successfully "sail on sunbeams," demonstrating solar sail technology in Earth orbit. The mission is providing hard data for future missions that hope to employ solar sails to explore the cosmos.

LightSail 2, a small cubesat, launched in June 2019 on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy, as a demonstration mission to test how well a solar sail could change the orbit of a spacecraft. A month after launch, when LightSail 2 unfurled its ultra-thin 32-square-meter Mylar sail, the mission was declared a success because the sail raised the orbit of the small, loaf-of-bread-sized spacecraft.

"We're going to a higher orbital altitude without rocket fuel, just with the push of sunlight," The Planetary Society's (TPS) CEO Bill Nye said at a press conference following the deployment. "This idea that you could fly a spacecraft and could get propulsion in space form nothing but photons, it's surprising, and for me, it's very romantic that you'd be sailing on sunbeams."

LightSail 2 Has Been Flying in Space for 30 Months - Paving the Way for Future Solar Sail Missions:

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