The Planetary Society's privately funded LightSail spacecraft has arrived in Cape Canaveral, Fla., where it will be integrated with an Atlas V rocket scheduled to launch no earlier than May 6. The spacecraft is part of a secondary payload dubbed ULTRASat, which will fly aboard the U.S. Air Force mission AFSPC-5.
This May 2015 test flight will pave the way for a second, full-fledged solar sailing demonstration in 2016. The spacecrafts will orbit carrying large, reflective sails measuring 344 square feet. These solar sails will use the sun's energy as a method of propulsion, in other words they will take flight by light.
How does this work? Well, light is made of packets of energy called photons and while photons have no mass, a photon traveling as a packet of light has energy and momentum. A Solar sail spacecraft captures light momentum with large, lightweight mirrored surfaces-sails. As light reflects off of a sail, most of its momentum is transferred, pushing on the sail. While the resulting acceleration is small it is continuous and unlike chemical rockets that provide short bursts of thrust, solar sails thrust continuously and can reach higher speeds over time.
"Our LightSail cubesat passed every one of its tests and has been loaded into its launcher mechanism. I'm naturally happy and excited, but I admit, a bit nervous. We've been working to get a solar sail into space since I joined The Planetary Society Board in 1997. It's quite a milestone. Deep breath, no turning back now, this baby's on its own now. Here we go..." Bill Nye (The Science Guy), CEO at The Planetary Society,
For complete coverage of the LightSail test flight, as well as the second LightSail mission scheduled for 2016, visit sail.planetary.org.
