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Unmanned Spaceflight.com _ Private Missions _ LightSail

Posted by: Juramike Nov 9 2009, 09:02 PM


http://www.planetary.org/about/press/releases/2009/1109_Planetary_Society_to_Sail_Again_with.html

Posted by: djellison Nov 9 2009, 09:26 PM

YAY!! Thank you anonymous donator!!

I'm glad has grown up a bit, is bigger, and we'll all be around to enjoy this - it's a special project in so many ways.


Posted by: ngunn Nov 9 2009, 09:50 PM

I was wondering what they were about to announce, and for me this is the best announcement they could possibly have made. As a planetary society member but not a millionnaire I have to choose carefully between the many good projects for which they solicit contributions. This is the one towards which my unavoidably modest contribution was the most heartfelt. The technology will be elegant and clean, yet the scope of imagination and ambition that lies behind it is truly breathtaking. I hope this time their diamond in the sky will fly - and inspire millions young and old as it should.

Posted by: PhilCo126 Nov 10 2009, 11:53 AM

What a way to commemorate the late Dr Carl Sagan... who's more beloved nowadays than ever before!
Deploying the solar sail will be the hardest bit of the mission, so all the best to the mission!

Posted by: nprev Nov 11 2009, 01:58 AM

Nice little article on http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSTRE5A90EB20091110....go, TPS, go, LightSail!!!! wheel.gif

Posted by: PhilCo126 Nov 11 2009, 03:38 PM

75 years: http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2009/11/happy-carl-sagan-day.php

Posted by: Tom Tamlyn Nov 11 2009, 08:57 PM

There's a http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/science/space/10solar.html?ref=science&pagewanted=all in the New York Times, with some nice graphics. There's also an interesting -- but extremely negative -- http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/science/space/10solar.html?permid=32#comment32 from a reader who says he worked on solar sails at jpl and claims that the experiment won't show anything.

TTT

Posted by: nprev Nov 11 2009, 09:15 PM

Not necessarily a bad thing. Thoughful technical criticism is valuable regardless of the source, and this is free to boot! smile.gif Nobody ever sees all aspects of an issue, which is one reason why systems engineering was invented.

Posted by: MahFL Nov 12 2009, 02:35 PM

"humans may soon be solar-sailing".
Who on Earth can create such a stupid misleading comment for an artists impression ?


Posted by: Juramike Nov 12 2009, 04:00 PM

Depends on your definition of "soon".

Given new developments in materials technology, radiation protection technology, and space habitation technology I could imagine lofting up a self-supporting station using a massive (multi-thousand km) solar sail for a long voyage. But I think we're still a few generations off....(but I'd love to be proved wrong.)

(Fun fact: the entire Wright brothers flight could have occured inside a Boeing 747. Could the general public have imagined a 400 person passenger jet routinely traversing the Pacific at 37,000 feet back in the late 1800's?)


Baby steps...

Posted by: ngunn Nov 12 2009, 07:56 PM

Also depends on what you mean by 'solar sailing'. After all you can fly a kite or sail a model boat without being on board. My gripe is with the artwork itself. It appears to show a wrinkly surface on the sail panels yet the Earth's reflection is not broken up accordingly. Fortunately both the artwork and the caption pale into insignificance beside the fact that the project is going ahead. smile.gif smile.gif smile.gif

Posted by: centsworth_II Nov 13 2009, 04:57 AM

Re: "humans may soon be solar-sailing"

The illustration is of the very light sail that the Planetary Society hopes to fly by 2011. So, yes, the humans at the Planetary Society will hopefully be solar-sailing soon. Vicariously to be sure. smile.gif

By the way, http://www.ricksternbach.com/, he seems quite accomplished.

http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/solar_sailing/lightsail1.htmlwill have four triangular sails, arranged in a diamond shape resembling a giant kite.... We plan to design, develop, build and test the LightSail-1 spacecraft so that it can be ready for launch by the end of 2010."


Artists rendition of LightSail-1
by Rick Sternbach. Credit: Planetary Society

Posted by: nprev Nov 13 2009, 05:18 AM

QUOTE (centsworth_II @ Nov 12 2009, 08:57 PM) *
By the way, google the artist, he seems quite accomplished.


Oh, yes...you could definitely say that. wink.gif

Posted by: djellison Nov 13 2009, 08:44 AM

I will say - having tried in the past a bit - doing animations of stuff like reflective foil in deep space - it's a big challenge.

Posted by: Stu Nov 13 2009, 09:07 AM

QUOTE (centsworth_II @ Nov 13 2009, 04:57 AM) *
By the way, http://www.ricksternbach.com/, he seems quite accomplished.


... and recently posted here on UMSF, by the way... smile.gif

Posted by: Rick Sternbach Nov 15 2009, 05:20 AM

QUOTE (ngunn @ Nov 12 2009, 11:56 AM) *
My gripe is with the artwork itself. It appears to show a wrinkly surface on the sail panels yet the Earth's reflection is not broken up accordingly.


I thought about crackling up the Earth reflection a bit more, but I decided that most folks would have fixated on the unevenness of the reflection and not seen the bigger picture, so to speak. Sometimes complete photographic reality in art is not the best way to go.

Rick

Posted by: ngunn Nov 15 2009, 08:34 AM

QUOTE (Rick Sternbach @ Nov 15 2009, 05:20 AM) *
Sometimes complete photographic reality in art is not the best way to go.


No gripe with that statement at all. As an artist you are free. My comment arose from the fact that when looking at that particular image and wanting to 'enter the scene' I found myself distracted by the apparent incongruity. But it's all subjective at the viewer's end too and maybe I'm in a minority of one!

At any rate I'm (of late) merely an enthusiast for space art whereas you're actually creating it, so count me as a fan. smile.gif

Posted by: Stu Nov 15 2009, 08:47 AM

QUOTE (Rick Sternbach @ Nov 15 2009, 05:20 AM) *
Sometimes complete photographic reality in art is not the best way to go.

Rick


biggrin.gif biggrin.gif biggrin.gif Oh wow, thank you!! I'm gonna quote that every time someone wrinkles their nose up at my use of lens flare! tongue.gif

Posted by: djellison Nov 15 2009, 09:12 AM

Your lens flare useage is a diagnosable psychiatric condition . Rick's use of artistic licence is entirely normal smile.gif

Posted by: Stu Nov 15 2009, 09:27 AM

laugh.gif

Posted by: Rick Sternbach Nov 15 2009, 04:28 PM

QUOTE (ngunn @ Nov 15 2009, 12:34 AM) *
No gripe with that statement at all. As an artist you are free. My comment arose from the fact that when looking at that particular image and wanting to 'enter the scene' I found myself distracted by the apparent incongruity. But it's all subjective at the viewer's end too and maybe I'm in a minority of one!

At any rate I'm (of late) merely an enthusiast for space art whereas you're actually creating it, so count me as a fan. smile.gif


And I have no gripe with your gripe. If there weren't any discussion about things, it would all be pretty boring. A good deal of the space art we do takes liberties with light levels and colors and so on, to make it more accessible, and there's a sliding scale of what is "correct" that runs all the way to total photographic realism, particularly in scientific visualization. Not counting, of course, the horribly gaudy 20X vertical representations of Venus from years back. smile.gif

And Stu, I do like a -teeny- bit of lens flare now and then (it can be such an overused gimmick), or some subtle play of light that guides the eye to a certain point. Not like in a certain recent movie. laugh.gif

Rick

Posted by: PDP8E Mar 30 2010, 04:39 PM

The Brits have a killer app for sail-tech

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8590103.stm

Posted by: punkboi Jun 30 2010, 06:34 AM

LightSail-1 Passes Critical Design Review

http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/solar_sailing/20100625.html

Posted by: punkboi Oct 20 2010, 03:00 AM

LightSail-1 Video Update: Construction Begins!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pf-NeZwBko0&feature=player_embedded

Posted by: James Sorenson Oct 22 2010, 06:05 PM

I'm curious if the camera's that were shown in the video are off-the-shelf, or were they designed specifically for the mission of LightSail-1? If they are off-the-shelf, who manufactured the camera's and optics?

Posted by: punkboi Jul 16 2012, 11:23 PM

The article below mentions three upcoming NASA missions (which will be flown on the venerable Delta 2 rocket) that would reach orbital altitudes that seem desirable for Lightsail-1...which The Planetary Society wants to send to an altitude of 800 km (500 miles):

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1207/16delta2/

OCO 2 (launch in 2014): 438-mile polar orbit

SMAP (launch in 2014): 423 miles above Earth

JPSS 1 (launch in 2016): 512 miles above Earth

Of course, I think TPS is planning to launch Lightsail-1 before the end of this year...so all of this may be a moot point

Posted by: Explorer1 Jun 4 2014, 11:57 PM

Almost two years since the last post; here's an informative update:

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/2014/lightsail-update-flight.html

Posted by: punkboi Jun 19 2014, 12:34 AM

Another update by The Planetary Society:

"LightSail update: Three steps forward, one step back"

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/2014/lightsail-update-three-steps.html

Posted by: punkboi Jun 28 2014, 01:32 AM

Can't wait for the announcement!

"LightSail is Ready for Launch! Join Us as the Countdown Begins"

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/mat-kaplan/20140627-lightsail-ready-launch.html

Posted by: punkboi Jul 2 2014, 03:03 AM

"LightSail update: Of booms and pretty pictures"

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/2014/20140701-lightsail-update-booms-pictures.html

Posted by: Juramike Jul 10 2014, 02:23 AM

Will launch on a Falcon Heavy in Spring 2016.

Posted by: punkboi Jul 23 2014, 09:47 PM

Drat.

LightSail-A Has a Blown Radio Amplifier. Now What?

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/2014/lightsail-a-has-a-blown-radio.html

Posted by: punkboi Sep 25 2014, 08:47 AM

Nice!

LightSail Sails through Day-in-the-Life Test

While there is still much work to be done before the team decides whether or not to send LightSail-A on a 2015 shakedown flight, Tuesday’s test sent the spacecraft over a big project hurdle—and gave the team a much-needed morale boost.

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/2014/20140924-lightsail-sails-ditl.html

Posted by: punkboi Oct 1 2014, 07:01 AM

More LightSail Day-in-the-Life Multimedia, and a Community Image Processing Challenge

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/2014/20140930-more-lightsail-ditl-media.html

Posted by: punkboi Dec 12 2014, 04:58 PM

LightSail Completes Testing, Announcement Expected in January

LightSail has now been transferred to Cal Poly. The spacecraft will be integrated with its P-POD (Pico-PolySat Orbital Deployer) in mid-January. An announcement from The Planetary Society on the status of the 2015 test flight is expected around the same time. Following P-POD integration, the spacecraft will be taken to the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif. for final acceptance testing.

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/2014/20141209-lightsail-completes-testing.html

Posted by: pitcapuozzo May 20 2015, 07:31 AM

T-7h 30mins!

Posted by: gwiz Jun 8 2015, 11:16 AM

LightSail deployed successfully yesterday, amateur trackers are on the case.

http://www.satobs.org/LightSail-A.html

Posted by: elakdawalla Jun 9 2015, 12:54 AM

Wondering if anybody here can do better than https://twitter.com/elakdawalla/status/608060964731240449 that we received today. Hopefully the full image will be transmitted eventually, so it might be wasted effort. But it was a fun jigsaw puzzle to attempt smile.gif


 

Posted by: ngunn Jun 9 2015, 07:48 PM

For anyone not already following, the complete version is now posted at Lightsail Mission Control. Huge congratulations to the team who it must be said have had to perform technical and mental acrobatics just to stay in the saddle. They will be hoping the voyage of lightsail-2 is equally inspirational but a lot less hectic.

Posted by: jamescanvin Jun 9 2015, 10:00 PM

Here is an attempt to reproject the image to get a top down view of the sail.



 

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