NASA’s mission to advance solar sail technology through the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System has shown promising signs, despite slight complications. The team is focused on collecting data to enable future solar sail missions and optimize spacecraft performance.
NASA mission operators are continuing to study the performance of the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System and characterize the performance of its composite booms. Following the successful deployment of the booms and solar sail, the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System is still slowly tumbling in orbit because the spacecraft’s attitude control system is not yet re-engaged.
During the deployment phase, the team turned off the attitude control system to accommodate changes in the spacecraft’s dynamics as the sail unfurled. The attitude control system is crucial for maintaining the spacecraft’s orientation, whether it’s pointing an antenna at a ground station for communication or positioning solar panels to face the Sun for battery charging.
Assessing Structural Integrity in Orbit
While the solar sail has fully extended to its square shape roughly half the size of a tennis court, the mission team is assessing what appears to be a slight bend in one of the four booms. This likely occurred as the booms and sail were pulled taut to the spacecraft during deployment. Analysis indicates that the bend may have partially straightened over the weeks since boom deployment, while the spacecraft was slowly tumbling.
The primary objective of the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System demonstration is to test deployment of the booms in space to inform future applications of the composite boom technology for large-scale solar sails and other structures. Data collected from this flight test has already proven highly valuable, and the demonstration will continue producing critical information to enable future solar sail missions.
The mission team predicts the slight bend in one of the four booms will not inhibit the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System’s ability to execute its sailing maneuvers later in the technology demonstration.
Energy Conservation and Mission Strategy
Now, mission operators are working to reposition the spacecraft, keeping the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System in low power mode until its solar panels are more favorably oriented toward direct sunlight. The team is conserving the spacecraft’s energy for priority operations – such as two-way communications with mission control – until its attitude control system is reactivated.
When the attitude control system is re-engaged, the spacecraft will be able to point its high-bandwidth radio antenna more precisely toward the ground station as it passes overhead during its brief windows of communication with the mission team. At this stage, the team will be able to gather even more data, calibrate the precise shape of the sail, and prepare to begin its sailing maneuvers.
NASA’s Ames Research Center oversees the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System project and developed the onboard camera diagnostic system. The deployable composite booms and solar sail system were designed and built by NASA’s Langley Research Center. The mission is funded and managed by NASA’s Small Spacecraft Technology program, based at Ames and led by the Space Technology Mission Directorate. The deployable composite boom technology was developed through NASA STMD’s Game Changing Development program. Rocket Lab USA, Inc. provided the launch services, while NanoAvionics supplied the spacecraft bus.