LightSail
Sign in to saveLightSail is a project to demonstrate controlled solar sailing within low Earth orbit using a CubeSat. The project was developed by The Planetary Society, a global non-profit organization devoted to space exploration. It consists of two spacecraft — LightSail 1 and LightSail 2. LightSail 1 was an engineering demonstration mission designed to test its new sail deployment method in space, it did not perform solar sailing. LightSail 2 was a fully functional spacecraft intended to demonstrate true solar sailing and incorporated the lessons learned from LightSail 1. LightSail is a follow-on project
Key facts
- Spaceflight.name
- LightSail
- Spaceflight.names_list
- LightSail ALightSail 2
- Spaceflight.image
- LightSail 2 Deployment Test.jpg
- Spaceflight.image_caption
- LightSail 2 after a boom deployment test
- Spaceflight.image_alt
- LightSail 2 after a boom deployment test at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo
- Spaceflight.image_size
- 300px
- Spaceflight.mission_type
- Technology demonstration
- Spaceflight.operator
- The Planetary Society
- Spaceflight.COSPAR_ID
- 2019-036AC
- Spaceflight.SATCAT
- 44420
- Spaceflight.mission_duration
- LightSail 1 Final: LightSail 2 Final:
- Spaceflight.spacecraft_type
- Solar sail
- Spaceflight.spacecraft_bus
- 3U CubeSat
- Spaceflight.manufacturer
- Stellar Exploration, Inc.,Ecliptic Enterprises Corporation,Cal Poly San Luis Obispo
- Spaceflight.dimensions
- Core: Sail:
- Spaceflight.launch_date
- LightSail 1: 20 May 2015LightSail 2: 25 June 2019
- Spaceflight.launch_rocket
- LightSail 1: Atlas VLightSail 2: Falcon Heavy
- Spaceflight.decay_date
- LightSail 1: 14 June 2015LightSail 2: 17 November 2022
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Official website
- www.planetary.org/sci-tech/lightsail
Show 1 more fact
- Commons category
- LightSail
Sources (1)
via Wikidata · CC0
~8 min read
Article
8 sectionsContents
- History
- Design
- Costs and funding
- LightSail 1
- LightSail 2
- See also
- References
- External links
LightSail is a project to demonstrate controlled solar sailing within low Earth orbit using a CubeSat. The project was developed by The Planetary Society, a global non-profit organization devoted to space exploration. It consists of two spacecraft — LightSail 1 and LightSail 2. LightSail 1 was an engineering demonstration mission designed to test its new sail deployment method in space, it did not perform solar sailing. LightSail 2 was a fully functional spacecraft intended to demonstrate true solar sailing and incorporated the lessons learned from LightSail 1. LightSail is a follow-on project to Cosmos 1 — a solar-sail spacecraft designed by The Planetary Society in the early 2000s, which was destroyed during a launch failure in 2005.
Both LightSail spacecraft measured (3U CubeSat) in their stowed configuration. After sail deployment, the total area of each spacecraft was .