Greetings, Bill Nye here. I am so excited because the LightSail 2 spacecraft
is still performing wonderfully. You know we launched last summer
and we got on orbit. It's amazing. Well now we're still on orbit
and we've got two fantastic cameras onboard and now we are getting these remarkable
images and I'd like to share a few of them with you. So we have the head of our team,
Dr. Bruce Betts. Take it Bruce!
Thanks, Bill. The first image is actually a set of images showing the deployment of the sails.
They start out folded up inside our loaf of bread sized CubeSat spacecraft
but then we see the mylar, shiny sail material deploying out to 32 square meters
which is about the size of a boxing ring.
Oh, I remember this moment. When all we were getting were the data
that showed that the booms were deployed, but there were no pictures. Not for a while.
But then, the pictures came down. Back you Dr. B.
Next up, sun beams over the western coast of India.
This landmass down here is India.
Mumbai is over this way. And then the southern tip of India is clearly visible right here.
And the Sun is actually behind the sail here, illuminating the backside and also
bouncing off the Arabian Sea.
Oh man, I love this one. The sunlight is coming right through the sail.
The Sun is fantastically bright, you all, and the sail is fantastically thin
so when it's lined up just so, sunlight comes right through.
It looks like the solar sail is coming right at you.
Take it, Dr. Betts.
Moving north just a bit to the Himalayas, this is actually my personal favorite picture.
This is all snow. It was a pretty clear day in the Himalayas
which was exactly why we chose to take a picture on this day.
Tibet is up here and Mount Everest is right about there.
Now it's important to note that our cameras are using very wide-angle, fisheye lenses.
That allows us to cover all the sail with two cameras.
We've removed much the distortion in this
image, but some remains near the edges.
Even with corrections, keep in mind that we're looking at a hundred and eighty degrees.
So one side of the image is the opposite direction of the other side of the image.
These are wild. This looks like you're seeing the whole hemisphere of the Earth,
but really we're at a relatively low alititude.
As high as the spacecraft is, it's a relatively low altitude.
It's a fisheye lens, a very wide-angle lens. You're not seeing the whole Earth
but you're seeing what looks like it. It's just spectacular.
Moving on to a nice view over Central Australia.
You might have noticed something special here.
This shadow on the sail is the shadow of the spacecraft. Our small cube set opens up
to have four panels like this. This, by the way, is a full-scale model.
By looking at some of these images we started to suspect that one of the panels
wasn't fully deployed. More like this.
We can only see the spacecraft by seeing the shadow so it took some investigating.
So Dr. Betts got to thinking about this and
instead of creating some amazing computer program with all sorts of
computer-aided design, computer-aided manufacturers style elements--no.
He got some card stock, some pieces of paper, and a flashlight.
And sure enough, yes. One of our panels is not fully deployed.
Or to use the technical term it is "flopped over."
We didn't plan on that, but the spacecraft is okay and in fact by figuring this out
we've been able to tune the orientation knowledge of our spacecraft
based upon using the flopped over angle.
Finally, let's move on to a stunning image of the Red Sea and the Nile River in Egypt.
I mean those pictures are just stunning. They just get me every time.
So thank you Dr. Betts. Thank you indeed.
And thank you to the fifty thousand people around the world
who just thought that solar sailing was a worthy use of our intellect and treasure.
So here we all are in quarantine with this extraordinary pandemic,
but the spacecraft is still flying. It's still taking our dreams beyond the sky.
We're learning more about outer space and our place within it thanks to you.
And with the spacecraft, which proved its mission, it's accomplished its mission.
But we're also using its cameras to give everyone in the world what astronauts call
the overview effect.
Each of us is able to see the whole world.
We're quarantined at home, but we can all share this experience.
We are all citizens of the same planet, in this extraordinary place
in the extraordinary cosmos.
Thank you all thanks for your support.
Stay safe and we'll keep 'em flying.
