Help Bill Nye out

[BigRedRage]

https://www.kickstarter.com/project...ail-a-revolutionary-solar-sailing-spacecraft/

LightSail: The People’s Spacecraft

I'm Bill Nye, CEO of The Planetary Society. Yes, the Science Guy is also the Planetary Guy. I invite you to come along on a cosmic journey with me by participating in a mission to sail a spacecraft, a tiny CubeSat no bigger than a breadbox, on beams of light. Imagine it: unlimited free energy from the Sun will provide CubeSats with propulsion and revolutionize access to space for low-cost citizen projects—projects like ours or by teams of students and faculty at universities. This means that spacecraft, especially small ones like CubeSats, won't have to carry heavy fuels into orbit, and that the acceleration will be continuous. Even better, this is a journey that is directly funded by the world’s citizens, like you, rather than by governments. LightSail™ is truly “the people’s spacecraft.”

Our LightSail mission will be the culmination of the hopes and dreams of our visionary founders, Louis Friedman, Bruce Murray and Carl Sagan. Some of you may remember Carl famously promoting solar sailing on Johnny Carson’s The Tonight Show.

 

[MadCardDisease]

I'm a backer of this. Been a member of the planetary society before. Love nerdy stuff like this.

 

[MadCardDisease]

Sail successfully deployed!

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/2015/20150609-lightsail-test-mission-success.html

 

[dreamcastrocks]

Sail successfully deployed!

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/2015/20150609-lightsail-test-mission-success.html

I have been reading up on it. They lost contact with it for a few days and it came back online.

 

[puckhead]

I like this.

Thanks for the updates.

 

[BigRedRage]

Ends in a Fiery death.

http://www.engadget.com/2015/06/16/lightsail-mission-ends/

While LightSail ran into more than a little trouble on its 25-day run, its mission was ultimately a success -- the only real goal was to deploy the ship's namesake sails and prove that the vehicle was spaceworthy. The real challenge comes late in 2016, when the Society expects to fly a second model that will actually use its photon-powered sails to get around.

 

[puckhead]

Ends in a Fiery death.

http://www.engadget.com/2015/06/16/lightsail-mission-ends/

Likely story.

You must be registered for see images attach

 

[dreamcastrocks]

Ends in a Fiery death.

http://www.engadget.com/2015/06/16/lightsail-mission-ends/

I'm a little surprised it re-entered Earth's atmosphere, unless it was supposed to. It had no chance of surviving it. (haven't read as much as I should)

 

[MadCardDisease]

I'm a little surprised it re-entered Earth's atmosphere, unless it was supposed to. It had no chance of surviving it. (haven't read as much as I should)

That was the plan all along.

This was a test run of deploying the sail and testing the technology. It was only launched to low earth orbit. So once the sails deployed it was only a matter of days before it would re-enter the atmosphere.

Lightsail 2 is the next launch (I think sometime in 2016) and that one will be launched beyond earths orbit and attempt to actually sail using sunlight.