Author Topic: Nasa's first experimental Solar Sail - Groundbased Images (Read 1380 times)

ralfvandebergh · « **on:** 04/04/2025 02:27 pm »

Nanosail-D2 was NASA's first experimental solarsail. I took the first high-resolution images at the time. This reprocessing shows the deployed sail in never before seen detail. We see attitude, angle, shape and other information of the sail in low Earth orbit.

The sail was just 3 meters wide, this image is taken from 667 km distance. More info on Nanosail-D2: https://www.eoportal.org/satellite-missions/nanosail-d2#experiment

Ralf Vandebergh

Robotbeat · « **Reply #1 on:** 04/04/2025 03:21 pm »

Quote from: ralfvandebergh on 04/04/2025 02:27 pm

Nanosail-D2 was NASA's first experimental solarsail. I took the first high-resolution images at the time. This reprocessing shows the deployed sail in never before seen detail. We see attitude, angle, shape and other information of the sail in low Earth orbit.

The sail was just 3 meters wide, this image is taken from 667 km distance. More info on Nanosail-D2: https://www.eoportal.org/satellite-missions/nanosail-d2#experiment

Ralf Vandebergh

Can you please take some images of ACS3??

ralfvandebergh · « **Reply #2 on:** 04/05/2025 07:45 pm »

Thanks for asking, I will go for a try as soon as conditions allow. The orbit is much higher then Nanosail and the size is the same I believe. So I don't expect similar resolution.

But it will be certainly interesting what eventually can be resolved.

Ralf

Robotbeat · « **Reply #3 on:** 04/05/2025 10:59 pm »

Quote from: ralfvandebergh on 04/05/2025 07:45 pm

Thanks for asking, I will go for a try as soon as conditions allow. The orbit is much higher then Nanosail and the size is the same I believe. So I don't expect similar resolution.

But it will be certainly interesting what eventually can be resolved.

Ralf

That is very cool.