Navigate the sun's rays: The LightSail 2 of the Planetary Society will climb higher than the space station

A sunlit spacecraft is expected to launch on June 22, ending a multi-year odyssey for the Planetary Society.

called LightSail 2The spacecraft the size of a bread-shaped bread is ready to fly aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, representatives of the Planetary Society said in a statement. With LightSail 2, the main objective of the group is to deploy a solar sail the size of a ring. The craft will use the sail to climb into its orbit around the Earth, relying solely on the pressure of photons (particles of electromagnetic radiation) emitted by the sun.

"If successful, LightSail 2 will become the first spacecraft to mount its orbit around the Earth using sunlight," said representatives of the Planetary Society in a statement.

Related: The LightSail spacecraft captures a solar selfie in space (photo)

"Although the light does not have mass, it has a moment that can be transferred to other objects," added the representatives. "Solar sail exploits this momentum for propulsion LightSail 2 will show the application of solar navigation for cubesats, [which are] a small standardized spacecraft that has made spaceflight more affordable for academics, government organizations and private institutions. "

LightSail 2 will not be alone in its epic launch. The machine is part of the Ministry of Defense's space test program 2, which will carry 24 spacecraft in three different orbits. LightSail 2 will travel in space inside Prox-1, a spacecraft from the Georgia Institute of Technology designed to show how to perform operations near other spacecraft in orbit. Prox-1 will launch LightSail 2 after a week in space.

If all goes well, a few days after the deployment of Prox 2, LightSail 2 should open its solar panels, then deploy four triangular Mylar solar sails. Gradually, the sun's pressure will increase the spacecraft more and more. After one month of solar pressure, the spacecraft will rise more than 720 km above the Earth, twice the altitude of the International Space Station.

LightSail 2 was originally scheduled to fly last year, but a test conducted in August showed that the batteries had run out "more than desired" since they were installed on the Prox-1 satellite in March 2018, representatives of the Planetary Society said in a previous statement. Despite delays in launching rockets, mission officials decided to temporarily bring LightSail 2 back to California Polytechnic State University (where the mission was tested) to perform periodic battery recharges, instead of letting it go empty. over time, until a new launch date is set.

This mission follows the LightSail 1 mission, which launched on May 20, 2015, on the X-37B, a secret aircraft of the air force capable of flying in Earth orbit for hundreds of days at a time. LightSail 1 overcome several software and communication problems to achieve all its major goals. LightSail 2 should fly higher than LightSail 1.

Before the LightSails, the Planetary Society launched a sail called Cosmos 1 in 2005, but this craft never reached the orbit after the failure of its rocket. The company's studies of solar-powered aircraft date back to their founding in 1980, said the Planetary Society, when co-founder Carl Sagan (who died in 1996) explained how to use a solar-powered spacecraft to explore the planet. 39; space.

There have been other solar navigation missions. For example, Japan's space program sent the Ikaros Spacecraft aloft in 2010, becoming the first agency to successfully demonstrate a solar sail at a distance from the Earth. NASA is planning a solar sail test in the deep space by 2020 or 2021, when the very large Space Launch System rocket will fly to the moon with several payloads. Among them is the NEA Scout Spaceship, which is designed to use a solar sail to explore an asteroid close to the Earth.

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