Bill Nye's Light Sail Spacecraft Unfurls its Wings

After a few setbacks, the Planetary Society's Light Sail 1 spacecraft unfurled its wings yesterday at 3:47 p.m. EDT, allowing the craft to begin its main mission: testing out the potential of solar propulsion in spacecraft.

It's a concept that was long championed by the organization's cofounder, Carl Sagan. But the idea has seen surprisingly few takers over time. IKAROS, a Japanese probe, is only solar sail spacecraft to leave low Earth orbit, sailing past Venus in 2010. And though NASA has run a few tests on such on idea, they've never deployed an official craft.

Not content to just sit by and wait, the Planetary Society, led by CEO Bill Nye, decided to launch their own. But the early parts of the mission were set back by software problems which left the society unable to contact the craft. After a week of problems, the society were able to stabilize the craft and set its trajectory right, sailing on in low Earth orbit.

After the Light Sail 1 ends its mission, the Planetary Society will launch a second craft, built on a similar CubeSat architecture but with software refinements to prevent what happened the first time from occurring again.

Want to know how the craft is doing? You can, of course, always check in with the Planetary Society's webpage. Or you can look up to the skies and see for yourself. The craft is visible from Earth, with the best viewing times around dusk or dawn when its dark but there's enough sunlight to light up the craft. To track its movements and see if it's going overhead, click here.