24 January 2011: Call it a stunner.
In an unexpected reversal of fortune, NanoSail-D has the NASA spacecraft a shiny sheet space-age fabric 650 km above the Earth, always the first solar sail to set orbiting our planet.
"We are solar sailing!" says NanoSail-D principal investigator Dean Alhorn of Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, al. "This is a significant achievement."
NanoSail-D spent and a half within its mother ship, which quickly, are affordable, science and technology satellite (FASTSAT) the previous month. FASTSAT started in November 2010 with NanoSail-D and five other experiments on board. High above Earth, a spring should press the Breadbox size probe in orbit own with space for a sail unfold. But when the big moment arrived, NanoSail-D got stuck.
"We could get from FASTSAT," says Alhorn. "It was sailing still fails in the long and difficult history heartbreaking - solar."
Team members began as weeks went by and NanoSail-D remained stubbornly and for some strange reason on board to give up hope. The mission seemed over before it even started.
And then 17 came Jan understand reasons still not fully to engineers NanoSail D spontaneously even ejected. As Alhorn in the control room went and saw the telemetry on the screen, he says "I could not believe my eyes." "Our ship was free flying!"
The team committed itself quickly amateur radio enthusiast Alan victory and Stan try Sims at the Marshal space flight Center, NanoSail-D pick up beacon.
"The timing was not better, could", says victory. "NanoSail-D was the first, going to track directly from Huntsville, and the chance, listen and decode the signal was irresistible."
Shortly before 5 pm CST, they heard a weak signal. As the probe effort increased, the signal grew stronger and the operators could decode the first package. NanoSail-D was alive and well.
"You could have scraped Dean on the ceiling." "He was like a new father to bouncing", says victory.
However, the biggest moment was still to come. NanoSail-D had to actually develop its sails. This was done on 20 January at 4 pm takes place.
Enabled through a built-in timer, cut a wire burner the fishing line 50 lb keep the probe closed the panels; a second wire burner published boom. Within seconds, which they unfurled spread a thin polymer of sheet of reflective material in a 10 m2 sailing.
Only a spaceship has done something like this before: Japan's IKAROS probe provided a solar sail in interplanetary space and used it fly to Venus in 2010. IKAROS is with the pressure of sunlight as his primary means of drive - a performance landmarks that a follow up solar sail mission Jupiter JAXA plan later in this decade has promoted.
NanoSail-D will remain closer to home. "Our mission is the Earth orbit, and explore the possibility, with solar sail as a tool for the old satellite and junk-e-, manoeuvre", explains Alhorn. Flying "as the sail of our planet orbits, it over the top of our atmosphere and experience drag." "Finally this brings it down."
In fact, Scheduler NanoSail D 70 to 120 days after Earth, Meteor style, mission forward to seeing again.
If this works, NanoSail-D could pave the way for a future clean-Up of low Earth orbit. Drag can be sail standard output on future satellites. If a satellite mission is terminated, the sail would deploy and back to Earth about air resistance, harmlessly disintegrated in the atmosphere, before it reaches the ground. Experts agree that something like this is necessary to prevent an exponential accumulation of space junk-e to the Earth.
Alhorn and colleagues will be monitoring to see how its orbit decays NanoSail-D in the coming months. She would like to also the pressure of sunlight on the sail, trade fairs, although atmospheric drag could overcome this effect.
No matter what happens next, NanoSail-D already has made history: it is an elegant and inexpensive method demonstrates, sail and be the first sail to orbit Earth provide. Finally is the team sail dislike FASTSAT leave diagnose - "and then we will be Eyelash thousand," says Alhorn.
A follow-up story on Science@NASA explains, such as Sky observers can pursue and photography NanoSail-D, before it returns to the Earth. Stay tuned for "solar sail flares."
Author: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA
Credits: "I am enthusiastic about the success of our partnership with NASA Ames Research Center," adds Alhorn. "This project would not have been possible without their commitment and support of many other companies in our team." "It was a team effort really."
NanoSail-D - Homepage
A brief history of solar Segel--Science@NASA
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