We are now just over 24 hours away from the beginning of the launch window for the third Falcon 9 Heavy from Kennedy Space Center, which among other payloads wlll carry The Planetary Society's LightSail 2 spacecraft. We'll talk about it here.
GO LIGHTSAIL!!! GO TPS!!!
Well, it made it into orbit & apparently sail deployment will occur in about a week.
The spacecraft has successfully separated from its host Prox-1 and has downlinked. Full story and details of future events http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/first-contact-lightsail-2.html?fbclid=IwAR0bkyKJJ7GemAsVTB8_mrcd35yf5V_oD4WB8ZUkjwvgwiYoFlgInJ-OFtw.
Panel (and panel-mounted camera) deployment occurred on Friday evening US Pacific time. Images and status update http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/lightsail-2-first-pics.html?fbclid=IwAR0QsSCZqcjeitqrChCb51134jvcZlN3BUE3HGRfovXL9p_YOvgxkWf4FwA.
i remember the efforts to get this going in the 90s, its been such a long time coming, but finally http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/ls2-deploys-sail.html!
they put together a cool gif anim of the unfurling sails
images look much better than i expected, all raw images are https://planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/data/ls2/all.html
Truly a triumph for citizen science and the realization of a dream long held. Congratulations to the LightSail team!!!
Lovely views! I still remember the disappointment with Cosmos 1; glad to see there are more reliable launchers these days!
Now to look forward to Lightsail being spotted from the ground...
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