A slight bend in one boom delays NASA solar sail flight
Even though NASA’s solar sail test mission, dubbed the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACSSS), successfully unfolded its giant sail in late August, engineers have not yet reactivated the sail’s attitude control system because they have detected a slight bend in one of the sail’s four booms.
While the solar sail has fully extended to its square shape roughly half the size of a tennis court, the mission team is assessing what appears to be a slight bend in one of the four booms. This likely occurred as the booms and sail were pulled taut to the spacecraft during deployment. Analysis indicates that the bend may have partially straightened over the weeks since boom deployment, while the spacecraft was slowly tumbling.
The attitude control system was turned off as planned during the deployment, allowing the sail to slowly tumble. It has been kept off longer than expected because the tumbling appears to be helping straighten the bend.
Once the control system is reactivated, the mission will then attempt to use the sail to change its orbit, to actually fly in space using sunlight like the wind.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Even though NASA’s solar sail test mission, dubbed the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACSSS), successfully unfolded its giant sail in late August, engineers have not yet reactivated the sail’s attitude control system because they have detected a slight bend in one of the sail’s four booms.
While the solar sail has fully extended to its square shape roughly half the size of a tennis court, the mission team is assessing what appears to be a slight bend in one of the four booms. This likely occurred as the booms and sail were pulled taut to the spacecraft during deployment. Analysis indicates that the bend may have partially straightened over the weeks since boom deployment, while the spacecraft was slowly tumbling.
The attitude control system was turned off as planned during the deployment, allowing the sail to slowly tumble. It has been kept off longer than expected because the tumbling appears to be helping straighten the bend.
Once the control system is reactivated, the mission will then attempt to use the sail to change its orbit, to actually fly in space using sunlight like the wind.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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