There may be hope yet for NASA’s latest attempt to launch a solar sail.
The NanoSailD was launched on 20 November 2010 aboard a Minotaur IV rocket from Kodiak Launch Complex on Kodiak Island, Alaska. It was thought to have ejected from its carrier satellite (FASTSAT) on 6 December 2010. However no confirmation signal was received – leaving the fate of the satellite up in the air. This morning at 3.30am (AEST time), engineers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville confirmed that the NanoSail-D nanosatellite ejected from its carrier satellite FASTSAT. The ejection event apparently occurred spontaneously. The ejection of NanoSail-D was also confirmed by ground-based satellite tracking facilities. If the deployment was successful, NanoSail-D will stay in low-Earth orbit between 70 and 120 days, depending on atmospheric conditions.
According to the NanoSail-D Twitter site, we should know by tomorrow if the actual solar sail has deployed correctly.
