NASA is calling on stargazers to keep their eyes peeled for the space agency’s experimental solar sail mission.
After some hiccups, the Advanced Composite Solar Sail (ACS3) has fully deployed its groundbreaking reflective appendages. That means it can be seen from the ground in the night sky. For those interested in getting a peek, they can find out when the solar sail is passing above their location via NASA’s mobile app. According to NASA, the app provides not just a list of all the upcoming times the spacecraft will be visible from a user’s location, but an augmented reality view that allows users to locate ACS3’s real-time location during a pass.
Those who do catch a glimpse of the solar sail as it passes overhead can share their experience with the #SpotTheSail hashtag on social media. NASA said some participants who do so will have their post shared on their social media channels and website.
The spacecraft launched in April aboard a Rocket Lab Electron rocket and made contact with Earth a week later. Initially, the entire vessel was packed into a CubeSat that was about the size of a small microwave oven. It was designed to unfurl into a square shape, with four 23-foot-long (7 meters) booms that stretch out along the square’s diagonals, with the sail stretched between them.
The spacecraft ran into some brief trouble in late August, when it attempted to unfold its solar sail, as an onboard power monitor detected some abnormal motor currents. The deployment was delayed while the issue was sorted, but several days later, a second attempt to unfurl the sail was successful, bringing the ACS3 to its full size, which is around the width of a small apartment.
That allows NASA to begin testing the novel method of space travel, which will include several maneuvers to see how it performs in orbit around Earth. According to the space agency, now that the sails are deployed, the spacecraft is so reflective that it can appear as bright as Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, to those of us looking up at it from Earth.
The solar sail is composed of cutting edge, lightweight materials that gain propulsion power by bouncing photos off the reflective surface. The current mission is designed to gather data on ACS3’s performance, which will be used to evaluate the shape and design of the sail, and figure out exactly how its thrust capabilities measure up.
In a post on its website, NASA said the hope is the technology can one day be used on far larger spacecraft that could be as large as 21,500 square feet (2,000 square meters). Those craft will hopefully include early warning space weather satellites, near-Earth asteroid reconnaissance craft, or even crewed exploration missions to different parts of the solar system. Because the propulsion isn’t based on any liquid or solid fuels, the future spacecraft will theoretically be lighter weight, and possibly even more eco-friendly.
To get a glimpse of this possible future as it soars across the sky, download the NASA app from the space agency’s website.
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