It’s been a few months since launch, and NASA’s solar sail mission isn’t looking so good; ground teams have so far failed to deploy its massive Sun-gliding system. The mission is designed to test new materials and deployable structures for solar sail propulsion as a form of space travel, but the mission’s success could be in jeopardy. The Advanced Composite Solar Sail System launched on April 23 on board Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket.
Nearly a week into its journey, the microwave oven-sized cubesat made contact with ground control from its Sun-synchronous orbit, which is around 600 miles (966 kilometers) above Earth’s surface. Things were going smoothly until NASA began deployment operations. During an initial attempt to unfurl, the mission’s solar sail paused when an onboard power monitor detected higher-than-expected motor currents, NASA wrote in a recent update.
NASA engineers are analyzing data from the spacecraft to understand what may have caused the sudden glitch. The spacecraft’s communications, power, and attitude control are operating normally in the meantime, according to NASA. “Mission operators have been able to download data from the spacecraft during brief, planned communications windows when it passes in range of mission control at Santa Clara University in California,” NASA wrote.
“The team is conducting analysis and assessing all spacecraft systems before resuming deployment operations.” Solar sails run on photons from the Sun, harness.