The LightSail 2 mission gets stronger and sends information about the mission at home!

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On June 25, 2019, the Planetary Society 's cubesat spaceship known as LightSail 2 took off from NASA Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard a Falcon Heavy rocket. It was the second solar sail launched by the Society, the first (LightSail 1) having been sent to space in 2015. Like its predecessor, this spacecraft aims to demonstrate the technology that would allow solar sails to operate in a low Earth orbit (LEO).

Since reaching the orbit, the LightSail 2 It has been stated that it is in good working order, as indicated by the mission control dashboard recently introduced by The Planetary Society. In addition to establishing two-way communication with mission controllers and passing a battery of checks, the spacecraft also took its first images of the Earth (and some selfies for good measure).

LightSail 2 is the third attempt to put a light-sail spacecraft into orbit by the global non-profit society dedicated to promoting the exploration of space and the technologies that enable it. The first was Cosmos 1, a larger luminous sailboat launched in 2005, but which failed to reach the planned orbit due to an unplanned rocket failure.

Their next attempt, LightSail 1, was launched on May 20, 2015 at the top of an Atlas V rocket of the United Launch Alliance (ULA). This technological demonstrator managed to get into orbit, but a series of software malfunctions two days after the start of the mission, the ground crew lost communication with the spacecraft and prevented the wing from deploying from of the ship. cubesat who was wearing it.

Over the next few days, the communications were re-established and lost several times, and the sail was finally deployed on June 7th. On June 14, after declaring that the test flight was a success, the spacecraft had returned to the Earth's atmosphere and caught fire. This latest launch aims to build on successes and learn from past failures.

Shortly after the launch, renowned science communicator Bill Nye tweeted about the success of the mission and shared a video. Nye reiterated the purpose of the Planetary Society and thanked the public for helping to make the mission possible:

"SpaceX Falcon Heavy took our LightSail [up] and [to] orbit, thanks to you. Thank you all. We advance space science and exploration, we democratize space, we innovate, we work to answer the two deep questions: where do we come from and are we alone? All because of you. So thanks."

LightSail 2 captured this image of the Earth limb on July 6, 2019 at 4:41 UTC with the help of a camera mounted on its double-sided solar panels. Credit: The Planetary Society

Since arriving in orbit, the Planetary Society provides regular updates on the mission. The public is also encouraged to obtain status reports from the Space Shuttle in near real time using the recently released LightSail 2 Mission Control dashboard. Updates are transmitted from the device every few seconds via a 334-line text file containing health and status information.

This includes the temperatures, the battery levels, the speed of the spacecraft and the state of the sail. This data is then analyzed by the team and displayed on the dashboard, whose entire archive is available for download. On the evening of Friday, June 5, the mission's inspectors announced that CubeSat's double-sided solar panels had been deployed successfully.

Shortly after, LightSail 2The cameras on board a solar panel took the first images of the Earth from the probe. These showed an illuminated crescent as the spacecraft made its way towards the orbital sun setting. In the second picture, pieces of the material resembling a fishing line (spectraline) used to keep the solar panels closed can be seen moving away from the spacecraft.

At the time of writing this article, the dashboard indicates that the LightSail – which must be deployed at the earliest today (June 9) – is always tidy. And with seven days and ten hours since the mission reached orbit, LightSail 2 is already the longest mission launched by The Planetary Society.

Be sure to check out the dashboard for updates, and watch this promotional video from LightSail 2 mission (courtesy of The Planetary Society):

Suggested reading: Global society, LightSail 2 Mission Control

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