NASA's Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3) headed into space on April 24 aboard Rocket Lab's Electron spacecraft, and in late August NASA said mission operators verified that the technology had reached full deployment in space. On Aug. 29, at 1:33 p.m. local time, the team received data showing that the canvas retrieval system test was successful.
Just as the wind guides a sailboat on the water, only a small amount of sunlight is needed to guide the solar sails into space. Although photons have no mass, they can impose momentum when they hit an object - this is what the solar sail benefits from.
Fortunately, the spacecraft that deploys the sail contains 4 cameras that can capture a panoramic view of both the reflective sail and its accompanying composite arrows.
The first of the high-resolution images are expected to be available on 4 September.
The Advanced Composite Solar Sail System spacecraft will be put to the test over the next few weeks as the team monitors the sail's ability to maneuver in space. By adjusting the orbit, researchers will be able to learn more about how to design and manage future solar sail-equipped missions.
"Flight data obtained during the demonstration will be used to design future larger-scale composite solar sail systems for space weather early warning satellites, missions to scout asteroids and other small bodies, and missions to observe the Sun's polar regions," Rocket Lab said in a previous mission description.
The spacecraft's location in its orbit is approximately 2 times the altitude of the International Space Station. If you were looking at the canvas from above, it would look like a square that's about half the size of a tennis court - about 80 square meters. | BGNES
