LightSail spacecraft makes contact with Earth again

LightSail, an ambitious project to make spacecraft move like a sailboat, has made contact again. Shortly after the satellite’s launch, the computer crashed, but a spontaneous reboot resolved the issues.

The Planetary Society, a non-profit organization founded by famed astronomer Carl Sagan, claims it received signals from LightSail. This puts an end to two days of uncertainty. There had been radio silence for a while because LightSail’s computer stopped responding due to a software error. Because the system could not be reset from Earth, it was hoped for the calculated reboot. So it finally came.

LightSail was launched on May 20. The main purpose of the mission is to discover whether the sail unfolds properly. Whether that will work is not yet certain, as The Planetary Society has not yet attempted this. First of all, a software update must be applied, after which it will be decided at some point to unfold the sail. No deadline has yet been given for when this should happen.

The sail is about 32 meters in diagonal and is supposed to capture photons coming from the sun. Because the particles hit the sail, a minimal pressure is created and the spacecraft can be propelled. The concept therefore resembles a sailboat that is propelled by the wind.

A test mission is also planned for next year, after which a number of missions will be planned if successful. It is still unclear when a spacecraft can actually be sent on the road with such a solar sail. The current test satellite is still in orbit.

In 2005, The Planetary Society, now headed by Bill Nye “The Science Guy”, also attempted to launch a satellite. However, the Russian rocket that was supposed to take care of the launch failed to orbit the Earth. NASA also tried to get a solar sail into orbit with its NanoSail-D project: the first time it went wrong, but the second launch was successful. NASA and The Planetary Society have now joined forces.