Weekly - NASA deploys solar sail successfully and more
Weekly Space News - Quick and Easy
Voyager-1 resumes contact after five months
Voyager-1, launched in 1977, is one of the only spacecraft to cross the solar system’s boundaries and enter interstellar space. As it grows older, its system malfunctions are getting more frequent. In November 2023, it suddenly stopped transmitting signals to the Earth due to a damaged chip in the craft that stored crucial code and programs needed for its functioning. The spacecraft could execute commands sent to it, but couldn’t communicate any data to Earth. Last week, experts successfully relocated the portion of code to a new memory area, restoring Voyager’s functionality after 5 months of effort.
NASA deploys solar sail successfully
Last week, NASA successfully launched its breakthrough solar sail technology and deployed it in space. The Advanced Composite Solar Sail System is kind of like a satellite. It is a technology demonstration mission, that uses large sail-like structures to propel itself forward. It functions similarly to the sails on a boat. The only difference is that in place of the wind, it is the light particles from the sun (photons), that will be used to push the spacecraft forward.
CSA launches 3 astronauts to Tiangong
Last week, CSA successfully launched 3 astronaut crew members to the Chinese space station ‘Tiangong’ as a part of the Shenzhou-18 mission. The launch took place using a Long March-2F rocket launched from China.
