Three years has passed since a solar-sailing mission was launched, but it is unlikely to celebrate a fourth anniversary.
LightSail 2 is a crowdfunded solar sail. It was anticipated that it would last a year in an assessment of how well a craft could perform using only the power of the sun.
The spaceship is in a fight with atmospheric drag, but it is still working well. According to an update from the Planetary Society, Molecules of the Earth's atmosphere are slowly pulling the spaceship back to our planet.
Bruce Betts, the mission's project manager, wrote on the Planetary Society's website that they have continued to work to learn more and sail more efficiently.
LightSail 2 captured stunning photos of Earth from space.
The mission has faced a few challenges The gyros returned incorrect spin rates after being recalibrated last summer.
The onboard flight software was updated to allow for gyro bias parameters to be adjusted. The update made our sail control better.
The change allowed the altitude to go up by 100 meters per day for a few months, but as of today the average altitude is less than 600 meters. At the beginning of the mission, it was 446 miles.
Increased activity in the 11-year solar cycle, as well as communications trouble with the spacecraft due to ground station components breaking, are some of the reasons why the altitude fell.
The Mylar sail material is in good condition and there are no major component failures, which is an amazing testament to the many people who have worked on it.
The team plans to make the most out of the next several months, but the data collected will remain useful for a long time after the mission. The team plans many mission analyses, paper publications and conference publications for LightSail, as well as continuing their connections with other space missions planning on using solar sails themselves.
LightSail continues to publish updates through technical publications and you can see key parameters through the mission control dashboard.
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