An amateur astronomer has grabbed some spectacular images of solar sail Nanosail-D.
Ikaros takes a picture of Venus.
More solar sail news: Japan’s solar sail mission, IKAROS, has been extended for a year. Key quote:
With the extended lease on life, the team will try new navigational tricks, such as varying the sail’s angle toward the sun and changing the craft’s trajectory. Mori called these “risky” maneuvers because they are not sure if the sail will remain fully extended. They intend to model the sail’s behavior and the craft’s response to plan future solar sail missions.
Want to do some space science and make money? Take pictures of NASA’s solar sail, NanoSail-D.
The Japanese Venus probe Akatsuka might have failed, but its partner, the solar sail Ikaros, continues to function, and remains in contact with its ground controlers, even at a distance of 45 million miles. (The google translation of the daily blog is sometimes spotty (” I will go home 入Rita bath. It will fit your feet smell.”) but still worth reading,)
A nano-sized solar sail, built by NASA and launched in mid-November, appears to have been lost. Sadly, this has been the history of almost all solar sail efforts: failure before the sail can even deploy.
A prototype solar sail was launched from Alaska on Friday. If it unfurls as planned, it will be the U.S.’s first solar sail success after several failures.
