1. Universe Today – LightSail 2 is Sending Home New Pictures of Earth
LightSail 2, the brainchild of The Planetary Society, has gifted us two new gorgeous images of Earth. The small spacecraft is currently in orbit at about 720 km, and the LightSail 2 mission team is putting it through its paces in preparation for solar sail deployment sometime on or after Sunday, July 21st.
LightSail 2 is a modular CubeSat that measures 10 × 10 × 30 cm. The solar sails, once deployed, will measure 32 square meters (340 sq ft).
2. Universe Today – The Lunar Gateway Will be in a Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbit.
3. Universe Today -There are Ring-Like Formations Around the Lakes on Titan
4. Universe Today – Starship Prototype Catches Fire After a Recent Test, But Appears Undamaged
5. Universe Today – Asteroid 2006 QV89 Now Has a 0% Chance of Hitting Earth in September
6. Nextbigfuture – SpaceX Has a Successful Untethered Flight for Starhopper
7. Nextbigfuture – SpaceX Is Switching to Thin Tile Heat Shield Instead of Active Cooling
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.
0.058 mm per second per second.
5 m per second per day
After 1 year it’ll have accelerated by 1.83 km per second
After 2 years it has reached escape velocity and it is out of here.
That’s not actually ridiculous given the decade long time frames of space probe missions.
(Assumes an orbit that lets you remain in sunlight and accelerating the whole time.)
So that is a Mars, or even Pluto probe, for the price of a cubesat. $40 000. Most of us could afford to do one individually. Of course you might not have any room or mass (or left over money) for instruments or communications. Details.