It ain't over til it's over

[acmespaceship]

NASA's solar sail deploys, although nobody's quite sure why it took so long: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/24jan_solarsail/

There's a flyover for Chicago tonight starting at 5:10 p.m. but NanoSail-D is disappointingly dim (mag 4.8) which would make it invisible in our light-polluted skies even if we weren't locked in with heavy January suicide-inducing overcast.  As usual.  http://spaceweather.com/flybys/flybys.php?zip=60304

Comments

[whl.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was looking forward to this one; I saw the best previous solar sail test for Earthside observing, Znamya-2 back in 1992. I watched it from my balcony in Itasca through binoculars, and wasn't sure at first if it was that or a UPS plane on final to O'Hare.