Bruce Murray Space Image Library

LightSail 2 Spreads its Wings and Begins to Fly

LightSail 2 Spreads its Wings and Begins to Fly
LightSail 2 Spreads its Wings and Begins to Fly On 23 July 2019, flight controllers at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in California commanded LightSail 2 to deploy its 32-square-meter sail. These images capture the deployment sequence as seen from one of the spacecraft’s 185-degree fisheye cameras. The view of Earth shows Baja California and part of Mexico. LightSail 2 is expected to continue to send back images as it orbits Earth until it reenters the atmosphere in approximately 1 year. The Planetary Society