LightSail to launch on a Falcon Heavy
The Planetary Society announced today that its solar sail experiment, LightSail, will be launched in 2016 on a Falcon Heavy.
It will be a secondary payload on what might be one of Falcon Heavy’s early demo flights. They also say the launch date is scheduled for April 2016, but since the rocket has not yet been tested I wouldn’t take that date too seriously.
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The Planetary Society announced today that its solar sail experiment, LightSail, will be launched in 2016 on a Falcon Heavy.
It will be a secondary payload on what might be one of Falcon Heavy’s early demo flights. They also say the launch date is scheduled for April 2016, but since the rocket has not yet been tested I wouldn’t take that date too seriously.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
I like the idea of the light sail but find it a bit limited.
For one it can only move away from a star or light source. Yet it can be steered by turning the sail but it can never ‘tack’ into the solar wind. It can only tack away.
And once it leaves the area of the light source it looses all power.
A nice no mass way to leave the solar system since you can just dump it off when its thrust is no longer enough.