Planetary Society may reuse NanoSail-D's spare, among other options

[eeergo]

Interesting update concerning the follow-on to Cosmos-1, the ill-fated solar sail the Planetary Society tried -but failed- to orbit on a Volna a few years ago. Apparently, after the latest setback to solar sail technology due to the Falcon1 failure, budget for projects like these has been cut at NASA (a short-sighted move, in my opinion, considering they mustn't have been spending much anyway), and the spare for NanoSail-D may be made available for the PS to use.

http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/solar_sailing/20090401.html

There are also some other options on the table, like building a new, smaller sail with the Russians, on their very restricted budget. However, what they really want to make sure is that it reaches orbit this time, so they are looking into using a Soyuz-Fregat or some other reliable launcher.