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NanoSail-D2
Sign in to saveNanoSail-D2 was a small satellite built by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and Ames Research Center to study the deployment of a solar sail in space. It was a three-unit CubeSat, measuring with a mass of . Its solar sail had an area of , and was deployed in around five seconds.
Key facts
- Spaceflight.name
- NanoSail-D2
- Spaceflight.image
- NanoSail-D in orbit (artist depiction).jpg
- Spaceflight.image_size
- 300px
- Spaceflight.mission_type
- Technology
- Spaceflight.operator
- NASA
- Spaceflight.COSPAR_ID
- 2010-070L
- Spaceflight.SATCAT
- 37361
- Spaceflight.mission_duration
- 240 days
- Spaceflight.spacecraft_type
- 3U CubeSat
- Spaceflight.manufacturer
- NASA Ames Research CenterNASA Marshall Space Flight Center
- Spaceflight.power
- Batteries
- Spaceflight.launch_date
- 20 November 2010, 01:25 UTC
- Spaceflight.launch_rocket
- Minotaur IV / HAPS
- Spaceflight.launch_site
- Kodiak Launch Complex, Pad 1
- Spaceflight.launch_contractor
- Orbital Sciences
- Spaceflight.deployment_from
- FASTSAT
- Spaceflight.deployment_date
- Commanded: 3 December 2010Occurred: 17 January 2011
- Spaceflight.decay_date
- 17 September 2011
via Wikipedia infobox
~4 min read
Encyclopedic overview
4 sectionsContents
- Chronology
- See also
- References
- External links
NanoSail-D2 was a small satellite built by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and Ames Research Center to study the deployment of a solar sail in space. It was a three-unit CubeSat, measuring with a mass of . Its solar sail had an area of , and was deployed in around five seconds.
It was planned to be deployed from the FASTSAT satellite around 3 December 2010, two weeks after launch. The satellite did not eject at that time, but on 17 January 2011, it ejected on its own and deployed its sail three days later on 20 January 2011. The beacon signal began transmitting after ejection and was first received on the afternoon of 19 January 2011.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “NanoSail-D2” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.