LightSail back on air thanks to space debris

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – @BednarChuck

Several days after a software issue caused The Planetary Society’s mission control personnel to lose contact with its LightSail spacecraft, officials announced on Monday that they were able to re-establish communications and that the test flight would move forward.

The Society reported that they received an automated radio chirp from the vehicle at the team’s Cal Poly San Luis Obispo ground station at 5:21 pm EDT, followed by a second one some eight minutes later. Based on LightSail’s onboard timers, mission control determined that a software reboot had taken place within the past 24 hours.

“Our LightSail called home! It’s alive!” Planetary Society CEO Bill Nye said in a press release, according to UPI. “Our LightSail spacecraft has rebooted itself, just as our engineers predicted. Everyone is delighted. We were ready for three more weeks of anxiety.”

The software issue stemmed from the fact that it shipped with an older version of its Linux OS, which created a file too big for the CubeSat to handle and caused it to crash. The team had been investigating ways to correct the problem, but also hoped charged space particles would hit the vehicle’s electrical systems and cause it to reboot (which is apparently what happened).

Deployment of solar sails expected to be completed Friday

Now that the spacecraft, which is about the same size as a loaf of bread, has re-established contact with Earth, its primary mission can now resume. On Tuesday, the Planetary Society revealed that they planned to separate its sail deployment sequence into two segments.

LightSail mission managers said that they plan to release the satellite’s deployable solar panels on Wednesday, and then conduct an imaging session to make sure that all systems are functioning as expected. If all goes well, the deployment on the solar sail itself will take place on Friday, during a ground-station pass that is scheduled to begin at 12:47pm EDT (16:47 UTC).

“On Thursday, all images will be cleared from LightSail’s cameras,” the Society said, “and a final go/no-go deployment decision will be made. The sail sequence would begin during a Cal Poly ground pass starting at 12:47 p.m. EDT. The spacecraft comes into range northwest of Seattle, passing below Kodiak Island, Alaska. Radio contact will last about 17 minutes as the LightSail slices across the midwestern United States.”

Afterwards, the signal will be picked up by a ground station at Georgia Tech, and as the sails unfurl, LightSail will pass almost directly in between the Earth and the sun, they added. Initial indications that the sail sequence had begun will come via the CubeSat’s automated telemetry, and during the next few orbital passes, the probe’s health and status will be monitored.

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