The LightSail mission staff will proceed to investigate knowledge collected in the course of the mission, publishing peer-reviewed journal articles, making convention shows, and conducting public outreach. Photos from the mission will be considered on-line.
Outcomes will proceed to be shared with different upcoming photo voltaic sail missions equivalent to NASA’s NEA Scout and ACS3. In a becoming bookend to the LightSail 2 mission, NEA Scout launched on Nov. 16 aboard NASA’s Artemis I mission to the Moon. The Planetary Society shares knowledge with the NEA Scout staff by a House Act Settlement.
NEA Scout will use an 86-square-meter (926-square-feet) photo voltaic sail to go away lunar orbit and carry out a sluggish flyby of asteroid 2020 GE, which measures simply 18 meters (60 ft) throughout. The pictures NEA Scout captures would be the first up-close footage of such a small world.
LightSail 2 was a completely crowdfunded mission that aimed to assist democratize area exploration. Extra 50,000 Planetary Society members, Kickstarter backers, personal residents, foundations, and company companions funded the mission. A miniature DVD connected to the spacecraft contained selfies from area followers and the names of Planetary Society members and supporters.
The Smithsonian Establishment displayed two fashions of LightSail 2 in 2021 and 2022. The mission was named one among TIME’s 100 Greatest Innovations of 2019, and gained a Common Science Better of What’s New award for 2019.
The LightSail program’s roots date again to the mid-Nineteen Seventies, when Planetary Society co-founder Louis Friedman developed a NASA idea for a photo voltaic sail that may have visited Halley’s Comet. Society co-founder Carl Sagan confirmed off a mannequin of the spacecraft on The Tonight Present with Johnny Carson.
The Planetary Society’s member-funded Cosmos 1 photo voltaic sail failed to achieve orbit in 2005. LightSail 1, a know-how demonstration practically similar to LightSail 2, accomplished a profitable sail deployment check in 2015.
Whereas LightSail 2 operations have come to an finish, the mission will dwell on as a brand new period of photo voltaic crusing begins.
“We’ve braved the harbor of Earth and located {that a} small craft can sail and steer,” mentioned Betts. “Greatest needs to those that sail comparable craft into the huge ocean of area – we sit up for an thrilling way forward for exploration, proud that we now have performed a task. Sail on!”
