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Projects: LightSail - The Future of Solar SailingLightSail-1
LightSail-1 -- the first of The Planetary Society's three spacecraft --will demonstrate that sunlight alone can propel a spacecraft in Earth orbit. Taking advantage of the technological advances in micro- and nano-spacecraft over the past five years, The Planetary Society will build LightSail-1 with three Cubesat spacecraft. One Cubesat will form the central electronics and control module, and two additional Cubesats will house the solar sail module. Cameras, additional sensors, and a control system will be added to the basic Cubesat electronics bus. LightSail-1 will have four triangular sails, arranged in a diamond shape resembling a giant kite. Constructed of 32 square meters of mylar, LightSail-1 will be placed in an orbit over 800 kilometers above Earth, high enough to escape the drag of Earth’s uppermost atmosphere. At that altitude the spacecraft will be subject only to the force of gravity keeping it in orbit and the pressure of sunlight on its sails increasing the orbital energy. The mission will give us a good, clean trial of sunlight as a means of propulsion. Using ground-based telescopes and onboard instruments, we’ll precisely measure the orbital energy increase. If it works as we plan, sunlight hitting the Mylar sail -- sunlight alone -- will accelerate and boost the craft to a higher speed and higher energy. And in that instant, space history will be made! When will LightSail-1 Launch? We plan to design, develop, build and test the LightSail-1 spacecraft so that it can be ready for launch by the end of 2010. Its actual launch date will depend on which launch vehicle is available and selected for flight. LightSail-1 will fly as a secondary payload to orbit -- that is "piggybacked" on another mission. A number of opportunities exist with various rockets now routinely carrying secondary payloads into space. Of course, we must fly with a mission going to an orbit that meets our requirements -- above 800 kilometers, at relatively high inclination, and with an orientation so that it can be viewed globally. We have identified several candidate American and Russian launch possibilities and hope to make arrangements with a specific launch vehicle provider early in 2010. Get LightSail Updates!Looking Forward to LightSails 2 and 3 LightSail-1 will lay the foundation for LightSail-2. This mission will be more ambitious. It will last months and begin the application of solar sails for reaching beyond Earth. Carrying a larger payload of scientific instruments, it will aim both to provide new data -- including Earth measurements -- and further refine our solar sailing skills. "Lightsail-1 fits into a volume of just three liters before the sails unfurl to fly on light. It's elegant," - Bill Nye the Science Guy, Planetary Society Vice President. Finally, in a few more years, we’ll debut LightSail-3, the crowning achievement. It will be a long (possibly multi-year) mission to fill a pressing need: to demonstrate an early-warning station for geomagnetic storms triggered by eruptions from the Sun. Right now we get barely minutes of warning time. Yet solar storms disrupt power systems and worldwide communications. A major solar storm could potentially cause a worldwide disaster… |
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