NASA's Nanosail-D 'sails' home -- mission complete
Tuesday, November 29, 2011 - 19:30
in Astronomy & Space
After spending more than 240 days "sailing" around Earth, NASA's NanoSail-D -- a nanosatellite that deployed NASA's first-ever solar sail in low-Earth orbit -- has successfully completed its Earth orbiting mission. Launched to space Nov. 19, 2010 as a payload on NASA's FASTSAT, a small satellite, NanoSail-D's sail deployed on Jan. 20. The flight phase of the mission successfully demonstrated a deorbit capability that could potentially be used to bring down decommissioned satellites and space debris by re-entering and totally burning up in Earth's atmosphere. The team continues to analyze the orbital data to determine how future satellites can use this new technology.
