NASA's NanoSail-D is breaking new ground. Image Credit/NASA
NASA is rounding up amateur photographers who would like a chance to win up to $500 for the best photographs of the recently deployed NanoSail-D spacecraft, an orbiting solar sail experiment.
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and Ames Research Center announced the contest Monday.
NanoSail-D was launched from Kodiak, Alaska as part of the Fast, Affordable, Science and Technology Satelite on Nov. 19. After some difficulties, NASA confirmed the tent-sized solar sail deployment on Jan. 20.
The experimental spacecraft is expected to circle the Earth for 70 to 120 days before it reaches a low altitude and burns up in the Earth’s atmosphere.
For contest details and up-to-date information on Nanosail-D, click.
Engineers believe solar sails could play several useful roles in the future. If equipped with the lightweight sails, aging satellites could deploy them to hasten their deorbit rather than hanging around to contribute to increasing amounts of hazardous orbital debris. Some day, larger solar sail powered spacecraft could journey on missions beyond the solar system at high velocity. Check the history of solar sails.
NASA has partnered with the website spacewearther.com for the contest.
Engineers want photos so they can track the spacecraft and chart its interactions with the Earth’s upper atmosphere.
There are two kinds of images the experts are interested in, those taken with telescopes and those of solar flares created by the sail when it reflects sunlight.
At its brightest, NanoSail-D will shine five to10 times brighter than Venus as it moves through the sky.
For tracking information check here. See where NanoSail-D is now and when the spacecraft will be visible in the skies near you.
Photos taken by amateurs will be posted on the Internet for others to examine.