NASA Set To Launch Solar NanoSail Into Space

An anonymous reader writes "Earlier this year the Japanese space agency successfully deployed and used a solar sail to propel its spacecraft Ikaros, and now NASA announced plans this week for its own solar sail mission. This fall it will launch the NanoSail-D into orbit 400 miles up with a Minotaur IV rocket. Once deployed, it will orbit for 17 weeks, proving the technology and allowing astronomers to snap lots of photos."

Comments

Re:The Apollo crews would be ashamed.

[MichaelSmith]

NASA built the worlds first solar sails anyway.

Space tourists?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this all we are now, just "snapping lots of photos"?

Re:Space tourists?

[ciderbrew]

They are making the brochure first.

Re:Space tourists?

[Sockatume]

It's a technology testbed, not a scientific instrument. That said, NASA and its affiliated institutions have probably done more science with photographs than most R&D departments have with million-dollar laboratories.

Proving technology that already works?

[damburger]

Nanosail D was originally to launch on one of the ill-fated Falcon 1 test flights, at which time it would have indeed been proving the technology. But now that JAXA have not only proved the technology, but applied it to interplanetary travel, it seems a bit moot.

Re:Proving technology that already works?

[Rogerborg]

Yup, seriously NASA, you're an embarrassment. Stop dicking around in low earth orbit like some tawdry commercial entity, replace your management with actual scientists, and go out and see the universe up close.

You want to prove the technology? Then send off an inster-stellar probe. Seriously, what are you waiting for, an invitation from Proxima Centauri?

Re:Proving technology that already works?

[Thanshin]

Proving new technology is just too risky.

Reinventing the wheel is now a long term objective.

Re:Proving technology that already works?

[MichaelSmith]

NASA have already sent five probes out of the solar system. Both pioneers, both voyagers and New Horizons. Thats a pretty good record IMHO.

And before you use a solar sail in deep space it makes sense to test one in low earth orbit. Its cheaper that way.

Re:Proving technology that already works?

[smallfries]

Unless your mission is designed to test the deployment of the sail, and the effect of the sail on de-orbiting the satellite when the mission is done.

Re:Proving technology that already works?

[MichaelSmith]

Interstellar light sails won't be much use to us until we can build infrastructure to boost them out of the solar system. Inside the orbit of (say) Mars, however they could be quite useful once we get our act together. Maybe Mercury will be our first serious outpost away from Earth.

Doing the hard stuff was easier when NASA had a blank cheque to spend. Now they don't. They need to take baby steps and make every bit of research count.

Re:Proving technology that already works?

[Geoffrey.landis]

Nanosail D was originally to launch on one of the ill-fated Falcon 1 test flights, at which time it would have indeed been proving the technology. But now that JAXA have not only proved the technology, but applied it to interplanetary travel, it seems a bit moot.

Not at all. If you don't want to actually use technology in space, but just want to get points for saying "I flew the first one," then one flight is fine. If you're actually going to use technology, though, a first demo flight is just the beginning of the development and testing stage, not the end. Pretty much everything about Nanosail D is mechanically and structurally different from the IKAROS sail; in terms of physics, they are similar, but in terms of technology, they are very different. IKAROS is held out by spin, for example; this makes for a solar sail that is not very maneuverable. Nanosail is strut stabilized, this is a sail that can be redirected much more easily (for example, to use for orbit-raising).

They are also not merely different technologies, they are very different mission types-- Nanosail-D is (as its name implies) a demo of a very small sail. Some applications are there for small sails; some are there for medium sails, and there are also a lot of applications for huge sails-- kilometers and larger, which still have to be demonstrated. Saying "we launched one sail once, now the technology is fully developed at all sizes and for all missions" is just ignoring the real world of technology, where every step needs developing and testing.

Finally, the IKAROS sail doesn't demonstrate very low specific mass, which is the key to practical propulsion. Nanosail-D is about three times better.

Saying "a solar sail flew once, so the technology is developed and it's moot to launch another one" is about as accurate a comment as saying "A horseless carriage was tested in 1801 so the technology is demonstrated and it's moot to demonstrate a different one."

Re:Proving technology that already works?

[Chris Burke]

So you think "real scientists" wouldn't see the need for this technology demonstration? Because in their highly scientific view they'd see no difference between this and what the Japanese did, and thus no need to test those non-existent differences?

It's not NASA that's an embarrassment.

Planetary Society LightSail?!

[jfanning]

This seems to be almost exactly the same as the Planetary Society's LightSail project, http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/solar_sailing/

And I think that LightSail was started because NASA gave up on the NanoSail-D project. So what gives? Did NASA change their mind about this and what about the LightSail project?

"D"

[nomad-9]

And here's the answer to the question everyone wants answered: What does "D" stand for?
"We chose the 'D' in the name, not because it came after models A, B, and C, but because it can stand for demonstrate, deploy, drag, and/or de-orbit."
- Edward "Sandy" Montgomery. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.

Re:"D"

[EnsilZah]

Maybe they just prefer Picard over Kirk.

Re:Screw the solar

[MichaelSmith]

Nuclear engines make less sense than you might think because they are limited by the amount of reaction mass you can carry. You might have enough fissile material to run a reactor for a year but only enough reaction mass for a day or so, at the very best, so most of the energy you are carrying is going to be lost.

Solar sails work anywhere you have sun light and can easily work for years.

Having said that I think there is an argument for using small fission reactors to power ion engines. A power plant like that could be used for a flight to Titan. The reactors could be similar to those use on submarines, so the technology would be mostly COTS.

japanese icarus?

[ingilizdili]

Why, in the first place, do eastern nations, developing or develop, adopt names from western culture. I believe the japanese have thousands of mythical characters of their own. ingilizdili

Re:Screw the solar

[strack]

you fail to recognise the very important fact that solar sails do not use reaction mass, so theres no fuel tank to run empty, so a solar sail will have thrust, and control over its own trajectory, for as long as the sun shines. and that, my good sir, is a very long time.

Re:The Apollo crews would be ashamed.

[teh kurisu]

Isn't that why NASA was founded? To be America's 'me-too' reply to Sputnik.

Re:Screw the solar

[Sockatume]

It's not widely appreciated, but honest-to-God nuclear reactors for satellites were developed during the cold war by both sides. The US only got as far as a solitary flight test AFAIK but I believe the USSR got some into operation. Quite an advantage in having a spy satellite with no solar panels.

NanoSail? What's so nano?

[c0lo]

Before reading TFA, an amusing idea of NASA sending a sail just 1 nm wide crossed my mind. After the can't be reaction, I though they are going to use nanometer thick sails, and wondered what they are made of? Graphene sheets maybe?

Turned out that is not:

NanoSail-D has a surface area of more than 100 square feet and is made of CP1, a polymer no thicker than single-ply tissue paper.

Rrright... It's like... say... an ISP providing a "broadband package" with speed no lower than 56 kbps.

Unless it is a helluva-lot thinner than a tissue paper, what's so Nano in this sail?

Re:Screw the solar

[MichaelSmith]

I believe the USSR got some into operation.

Yep

Re:The Apollo crews would be ashamed.

[GooberToo]

Isn't that why NASA was founded? To be America's 'me-too' reply to Sputnik.

Ahh - no!

NASA was founded because leaving it with the armed forces didn't make a lot of sense when you're politically saying space exploration is for peaceful purposes and that we don't want to militarize space.

And as for the "me too", the US allowed Sputnik to be launched first to specifically allow the Russians to establish a precedence of space-based overflights as not violating a countries airspace. If the US had wanted to, they could have beaten the Russian's by almost a year but were very afraid the Russians would create international ire and allow the Russians to establish space-based airspace by precedence.

You need to keep in mind, this all happened just as the nuclear arms race was just kicking into overdrive. The US President ask the Russians for unilateral overflights to monitor each other's nuclear forces as a means of nuclear arms control. Russia told the US to get bent.

When spies informed the US of Russia's Sputnik development, a plan was hatched. The US immediately mothballed Wernher von Braun's orbital plans so as to allow Russia first orbital access. At the same time, US funding for the Navy's failure of a rocket project received additional funding. The Navy's project was far, far, far behind that of both the Russian's and von Braun's efforts which means it provided for the perfect cover - the US was behind the Russians.

Their plan worked perfectly save exactly one aspect. The completely under estimated the US public's reaction to the perception the US was far behind the Russians in space technology. This ignores the fact that von Braun's rocket was removed from storage, taken directly to the launch pad, a successfully launched a satellite into orbit. The satellite, I might add, which was carried around in the back of one of von Braun's associates' car for many months prior to de-mothballing of their project.

Imagine how entirely different the world would be today if the US had not allowed the Russians to be first in orbit.

Re:The Apollo crews would be ashamed.

[Geoffrey.landis]

Wrong Wikipedia link, he should have shown http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_sail#Solar_pressure_demonstrated_for_attitude_control

Solar sailing was used for spacecraft attitude control on the Mariner ten mission to Venus and Mercury

Micrometeoroids- not a problem [Re:bad idea]

[Geoffrey.landis]

Hmm, a gian, thin space sail that's probably several square miles. Boy, I sure hope one single little chunk of orbital debris or meteor doesn't impact that gigantic area in the 2 weeks or it won't work so well. Sails tend to not like meteors impacting them. Too bad the odds of that happening are about 99.99999%. I don't know what they're thinking.

Actually, solar sails are almost completely unaffected by small impacts by micrometeoroids or debris. The micrometeoroids go right through. They do leave a hole, which reduces the area of the sail by a trivial amount, but sail areas are so large, and micrometeoroids so small, that it would take decades to centuries before the effective area loss reduces performance significantly.

If a micrometeoroid impacts the struts or support structure, of course, that may be more of a problem, depending on how redundant the structure is (and how big the impact-- but micrometeoroids are small, and debris is not much of a problem in interplanetary space, where sails are most likely to be used). Of course to make a sail lightweight, the support structures had better account for only an extremely small fraction of the sail area.