Articles

The Downlink

Curiosity captures crepuscular rays on Mars, a new member community launches, and solar sailing takes exploration into the future.

Jason Davis

An exciting future for solar sailing is on the horizon.

The Downlink

Distant robots run into problems, and distant worlds hold onto secrets — for now.

The Downlink

Take a look at distant worlds, far-out views of the cosmos, and even some remote possibilities with this week’s scoop on space news and solar system history.

Richard Chute

LightSail 2’s launch window opens on June 22, and we are finalizing plans for our launch viewing celebrations. Once we have finished coordinating the details with the Air Force’s STP-2 mission team and the Kennedy Space Center, we will share them with all of our members and backers so that you can join us in person or remotely via the internet.

Jason Davis

The next time its solar sail is deployed, NEA Scout will be out near the Moon.

Anatoly Zak

A Canadian Space Agency proposal would install a solar sail on the outside of the Deep Space Gateway, a miniature space station in lunar orbit.

Jason Davis

When SLS launches Orion to the moon in 2018, a fleet of deep space CubeSats will come along for the ride, including a solar sailing spacecraft similar to LightSail.

Van Kane

Van Kane rounds up some recent planetary mission concepts based on CubeSat technology.

Jason Davis

I’m excited to report some big news on The Planetary Society’s LightSail project: actual launch dates on actual launch vehicles!

Bruce Betts

Chris Biddy from Stellar Exploration Inc. presented information about our LightSail project at the 2012 Aerospace Mechanisms Symposium.

Mat Kaplan

The city of Tustin is about an hour's drive from Planetary Society HQ in Pasadena. That's when the freeway gods are kind, which they never are. The trip I made there yesterday was well worth the trouble.

Emily Lakdawalla

JAXA's solar sail demonstration craft IKAROS is still puttering along, 17 months after it launched, and its controllers back on Earth keep coming up with new things to try with it. I'm pretty amazed by the most recent trick: reversing its spin direction. This may not sound like a big deal, but it is, especially for IKAROS.

Louis D. Friedman

The first full scale deployment of the Planetary Society's LightSail 1 solar sail was conducted on March 4, 2011 at Stellar Exploration in San Luis Obispo, California.

Bruce Betts

NASA announced that the Planetary Society’s LightSail 1 solar sail mission is on their short list for upcoming launch opportunities. The missions selected are CubeSats destined for piggyback launches as part of NASA's CubeSat Launch Initiative.

Louis D. Friedman

NASA's Nanosail-D spacecraft surprised everyone, including its controllers, by suddenly deploying from its parent FASTSAT spacecraft and beginning its mission in space.

Charlene Anderson

It was once thought lost in space, but it looks like NanoSail-D has ejected from its FastSat carrier and is preparing for deployment.

Louis D. Friedman

Japan's IKAROS team stole the show at the International Solar Sailing Symposium in New York City, where they announced that their spacecraft had achieved controlled solar sail flight.

Louis D. Friedman

While we were in New York for the International Solar Sailing Symposium last week, we held a meeting with the Japanese IKAROS team to discuss technical results and issues in our two projects.

Louis D. Friedman

This week, Bill Nye and I are attending the International Solar Sail Symposium at the New York College of Technology.