EUROPE: Controllers of the experimental LightSail spacecraft say they have re-established contact with it and successfully deployed its solar sail after a previous attempt had failed.
Two days after its launch May 20, the spacecraft’s handlers at the non-profit nonprofit Planetary Society and its university partners lost contact when the LightSail took itself offline after experiencing a software glitch.
Mission manages said the glitch put its solar-powered batteries in a “sleep” or safe mode, possibly as result of the solar cells experiencing a “ping-pong” effect of first too much and then too little sunlight.
After 8 days of silence the craft rebooted itself, but then went silent again last week.
Controllers managed to reestablish contact June 6 and, after a first failed attempt, managed to activate the tiny motor that began to unfurl the 344-square-foot thin Mylar sail.
“All indications are that the solar sail deployment was proceeding nominally,” mission manager David Spencer wrote on the Planetary Society blog.
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