LightSail

The LightSail project of the Planetary Society intends to fly three solar sails of increasing size and complexity over the next several years. An anonymous donor provided funding for the missions, which will begin with LightSail-1, a 3-meter square sail deployed from a 10x10x30cm Cubesat. This is similar to NASA's NanoSail-D. LightSail-2 will be larger and have increased sailing ability out of Earth orbit. LightSail-3 is intended to sail to the sun-Earth L1 Lagrange point to demonstrate solar wind monitoring for geomagnetic storm forecasting. The Planetary Society previously attempted to test fly a solar sail in the Cosmos 1 mission.

References

• The Planetary Society press release
• The Planetary Society LightSail project page
• New York Times: Setting Sail Into Space, Propelled by Sunshine
• MSNBC.com: After letdown, solar-sail project rises again
• Planetary Radio: Celebrating Carl Sagan and a New Solar Sail With Ann Druyan
• The Planetary Society Blog: A million dollars says the Planetary Society can make a solar sail fly