“Success! We’re sailing, peoples!” tweeted Bill
Nye, CEO of the Planetary Society and better
known to TV viewers as “The Science Guy.”
The crowd-funded spacecraft, about the size of
a loaf of bread, was among 24 research satellites
launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket
from Florida last month.
The sail is formed by four triangular sheets of
extremely thin, reflective Mylar that form a square
totaling 344 square feet (32 square meters).
If it works as planned, the momentum of
photons hitting the sail will accelerate the craft,
a method researchers see as a potential way to
propel tiny satellites known as CubeSats.
Such acceleration occurs slowly but is constant,
so speed will build up over time.
The project’s goal is to try to have sunlight
alone raise the orbit of LightSail 2 by a
measureable amount.
It’s the third solar sail project for The Planetary
Society, a Pasadena-based organization that
encourages advancement of space science
and exploration.
The first mission, Cosmos 1, never reached orbit
because of a launch rocket failure in 2005.
In 2015, LightSail 1 completed a test flight
by deploying a sail before falling back into
the atmosphere.
Japan’s space agency also successfully launched
a solar sail dubbed Ikaros in 2010.
The Planetary Society was founded by the
late astronomer Carl Sagan and two veterans
of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Louis
Friedman and Bruce Murray.