NASA reveals technical problem during solar sail deployment of test mission
NASA today revealed that a technical problem occurred during the deployment of a demonstration solar sail mission launched in April on Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket.
Upon an initial attempt to unfurl, the solar sail paused when an onboard power monitor detected higher than expected motor currents. Communications, power, and attitude control for the spacecraft all remain normal while mission managers work to understand and resolve the cause of the interruption by analyzing data from the spacecraft.
The goal had been test the boom deployment of a 860 square foot sail from a cubesat only about 4 feet in size.
The concept of the solar sail is simple: Use the pressure produced by sunlight to maneuver and fly controlled throughout the solar system. The idea has been tested successfully several times, with the Japanese IKAROS test solar sail and the Planetary Society’s Lightsail-2 the most successful. Sadly almost all other attempts to test this idea have had technical problems of one kind or another.
Ironically, one test solar sail proved that such a deployment from a cubesat could be done very cheaply, unlike NASA’s effort above. Brown University students in 2023 used cheap off-the-shelf parts to launch a smallsat sail that successfully deployed and was then used to lower the satellite’s orbit in order to de-orbit it more quickly. Total cost, $10,000. And it worked.
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 or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. 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
NASA today revealed that a technical problem occurred during the deployment of a demonstration solar sail mission launched in April on Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket.
Upon an initial attempt to unfurl, the solar sail paused when an onboard power monitor detected higher than expected motor currents. Communications, power, and attitude control for the spacecraft all remain normal while mission managers work to understand and resolve the cause of the interruption by analyzing data from the spacecraft.
The goal had been test the boom deployment of a 860 square foot sail from a cubesat only about 4 feet in size.
The concept of the solar sail is simple: Use the pressure produced by sunlight to maneuver and fly controlled throughout the solar system. The idea has been tested successfully several times, with the Japanese IKAROS test solar sail and the Planetary Society’s Lightsail-2 the most successful. Sadly almost all other attempts to test this idea have had technical problems of one kind or another.
Ironically, one test solar sail proved that such a deployment from a cubesat could be done very cheaply, unlike NASA’s effort above. Brown University students in 2023 used cheap off-the-shelf parts to launch a smallsat sail that successfully deployed and was then used to lower the satellite’s orbit in order to de-orbit it more quickly. Total cost, $10,000. And it worked.
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 or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. 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
That’s the problem—packing things in too tight in too small a rocket.
I’d bet that, among the Brown students who designed and built the successful solar sail, you’d find at least one who had had some experience working as crew on a racing yacht. The NASA team, on the other hand, I would just as strongly expect to be entirely landlubbers.
Update 8/29:
Colleagues,
Today, the NASA Langley-developed composite booms and solar sails were successfully deployed on-orbit as a part of the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3) mission. I want to congratulate the NASA Langley team on the successful demonstration of this new technology. I also would like to congratulate our colleagues and partners in the Small Spacecraft Technology program office at NASA Ames who managed the ACS3 project. This mission has been years in the making, with a number of hurdles to overcome — right up to these successful, exciting moments of deployment. The team’s creativity, dedication and perseverance have been essential to its success.
The launch of ACS3 took place from New Zealand on April 23 with the primary objective of unfurling the solar sails, which were designed, developed, and tested at NASA Langley. Now, about 600 miles above Earth those composite booms have unrolled and stretched out the sail segments—a shiny, 860-square-foot spacecraft catching photons and using the power of sunlight to provide propulsion. We look forward to the next milestone when the booms are maneuvered, and the sail is angled to adjust the spacecraft’s orbit.
Solar sail technology can be an important tool for future science and exploration missions by using the free and limitless energy of the Sun to take us to new corners of the solar system. I am excited to see where is leads us next.
Again, our heartiest congratulations to our incredible team. Thank you for a job well done!
Kevin Kempton: You appear to be part of the team for this project. Can you direct me to any specific official post providing a full update?