LunarSail Satellite

Spacecraft LunarSail
Spacecraft type CubeSat
Units or mass 3U
Status cancelled
Organization ARES Institute (Aerospace Research & Engineering Systems Institute)
Institution Non-profit
Entity type Commercial
Headquarters US
Oneliner

Launch a CubeSat amateur satellite containing a solar sail and orbit the Moon.

Description

LunarSail is a project to design, build and launch a CubeSat amateur satellite containing a solar sail and orbit the Moon. LunarSail is an effort to demonstrate the ability of a spacecraft under solar sail propulsion to navigate itself into a lunar trajectory and insert itself into Lunar orbit.

A primary objective of the LunarSail mission is to serve as a testbed for cubesat operations beyond low Earth orbit and applications requiring cislunar or interplanetary rendezvous. It is a proposed cubesat mission intended to demonstrate practical application of solar sail technology for propulsion, trajectory/attitude control and rendezvous with another body in space. With LunarSail, we will take advantage of the cubesat platform to conduct a first of its kind mission to use a solar sail to send a spacecraft to the Moon and then utilize the sail’s unique characteristics to navigate into lunar orbit.

Sources [1] [2]
Keywords Solar sail, Propulsion

Last modified: 2024-05-29

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Created by Erik Kulu

Email: erik.kulu@nanosats.eu
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