A phone call from NASA’s Kim Newton at Marshall Space Flight Center confirms what some of us were beginning to fear, that the ejection sequence that would separate NanoSail-D from FASTSAT, at first thought successful, has apparently malfunctioned. Although telemetry from FASTSAT looked good and seemed to confirm the ejection, the NanoSail-D team has no beacon from the sail, and while attempts to locate it will continue throughout the weekend, the outlook has suddenly turned grim.

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