Spacetrack Directory Name | LIGHTSAIL |
Alternative name | LIGHTSAIL-2 |
Orbit launches | 2019-06-25 |
Deorbitation date | 2022-11-17 |
Days in orbit | 1241 |
Country/organisation of origin | USA (US) |
Starting point | AFETR (Kennedy Space Center/Cape Canaveral, USA) |
Categories | |
Perigee | 684 km |
Apogee | 716 km |
Height LIGHTSAIL | 628.26 km |
LightSail is a project to demonstrate controlled solar sailing within low Earth orbit using a CubeSat. The project was developed by The Planetary Society, a global non-profit organization devoted to space exploration. It consists of two spacecraft?LightSail 1 and LightSail 2. LightSail 1 was an engineering demonstration mission designed to test its new sail deployment method in space, it did not perform solar sailing. LightSail 2 is a fully functional spacecraft intended to demonstrate true solar sailing, and incorporates the lessons learned from LightSail 1. LightSail is a follow-on project to Cosmos 1?a solar sail spacecraft designed by The Planetary Society in the early 2000s which was destroyed during a launch failure in 2005.
Both LightSail spacecraft measure 10 cm × 10 cm × 30 cm (3.9 in × 3.9 in × 11.8 in) in their stowed configuration. After sail deployment, the total area of each spacecraft is 32 square meters (340 sq ft).