by Paul Gilster | Dec 10, 2010 | Sail Concepts | 5 comments
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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What is it with NASA and solar-sails?
While distressing, this is the normal sequence of events in developing new space technology. Learn from it and build the next one.
This keeps happening to solar sail missions because they are not getting the major support that they should, the Japanese mission being a recent exception.
The Planetary Society learned their lesson from Cosmos 1 so that not only will their next one be sent on an actual space rocket but they are even planning a backup which I am sure can be utilized no matter what happens to Cosmos 2. But solar sail missions deserve much better attention from the major space powers.
Well, drat. I rather believe the team is vastly more disappointed than I am, but I’m still pretty disappointed.
It’s Alive! NanoSail-D Suddenly and Spontaneously Comes Back to Life
by Nancy Atkinson on January 19, 2011
A small solar sail that was thought to be a lost cause has “spontaneously” come back to life. The NanoSail-D — a NASA-designed solar sail cubesat that launched in December but suddenly went silent without confirmation of its deployment — unexpectedly ejected from its host satellite on Wednesday, Jan. 19 at 11:30 a.m. EST.
Engineers at Marshall Space Flight Center confirmed that the NanoSail-D nanosatellite ejected from Fast Affordable Scientific and Technology Satellite, FASTSAT, when they looked at onboard FASTSAT telemetry. The ejection of NanoSail-D also has been confirmed by ground-based satellite tracking.
Now NASA is asking for help from ham radio operators to listen for the signal to verify NanoSail-D is operating. And knowing the status of the solar sail is time critical.
http://www.universetoday.com/82647/its-alive-nanosail-d-suddenly-and-spontaneously-comes-back-to-life/