{"id":409879,"date":"2026-01-15T01:41:20","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T01:41:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/409879\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T01:41:20","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T01:41:20","slug":"cornell-students-deploy-worlds-first-free-flying-light-sail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/409879\/","title":{"rendered":"Cornell Students Deploy World\u2019s First Free-Flying Light Sail"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Alpha CubeSat<\/a> team \u2014 a student-led group in Cornell\u2019s Space Systems Design Studio<\/a> that creates spaceflight technology \u2014 successfully deployed the world\u2019s first free-flying light sail into Earth\u2019s orbit on Wednesday night. Light sails<\/a> are an emerging method of spaceflight that harness the momentum of sunlight for acceleration.<\/p>\n

The team built the Alpha CubeSat as part of a National Aeronautics and Space Administration program<\/a> supporting student-built spacecraft missions. CubeSats \u2014 a type of satellite named for its standardized cubic centimeter proportions \u2014\u00a0are relatively inexpensive and customizable, making them well suited for exploratory ventures.<\/p>\n

The team designed the Alpha CubeSat to stow and deploy a light sail \u2014\u00a0a shimmering silver square that harnesses not wind but the momentum of sunlight. When light particles bounce off its super-reflective surface, their tiny pushes accumulate, accelerating the sail to provide an alternative to fuel-based propulsion.<\/p>\n

\u201c[The mission] definitely has been an inspiration to so many undergrads that have worked on this project in so many years,\u201d said the team\u2019s integration and testing lead Apurva Hanwadikar \u201927. \u201cMost undergrads never get to touch anything going to space, so I think [this mission] has given so many undergrads the opportunity to do so when they never would otherwise.\u201d<\/p>\n

Astronauts used a robotic arm to release the Alpha CubeSat from the International Space Station into Earth\u2019s orbit early Tuesday morning. After the team established contact with the satellite, they sent a command to open a spring-latched door, releasing the light sail.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Unlike previous light sails, the Alpha light sail detached completely from the CubeSat, becoming an independent, free-flying spacecraft. Its ChipSats<\/a> \u2014 tiny satellites small enough to fit in a wallet \u2014 provide solar power, computing, sensors and radio communication with Earth.<\/p>\n

Because it functions independently from the CubeSat, the Alpha light sail is small compared to other light sails \u2014 about half a meter across and weighing under 100 grams including the ChipSats. This enables the sail to unfurl rapidly and accelerate much faster than larger, heavier sails. The Alpha light sail also costs a fraction of traditional spacecraft missions, according to team lead graduate student Joshua Umansky-Castro. The cost efficiency means future missions could launch fleets of light sails into space.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe light sail is probably the coolest thing for me,\u201d Hanwadikar said. \u201cIt feels like how cool normal wind sails are, but now we’re bringing them to space \u2014\u00a0it’s like a whole new exciting field to get into.\u201d<\/p>\n

The light sail\u2019s success capped a tense and exciting week for the Alpha team. After watching the CubeSat leave the ISS, the team waited to receive initial data when it made contact with Earth.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a crazy night. There\u2019s been a lot of lead-up to this, all the testing and coding. All that testing comes down to today,\u201d said software lead Jonathan Ma \u201926. “It was kind of a surreal experience seeing [the Alpha CubeSat] whisk by on screen as the astronauts released it.\u201d<\/p>\n

After a few messages, the CubeSat unexpectedly went silent. For 34 hours, the team heard nothing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Although a concerning development, the Alpha team prepared the CubeSat with several modes to respond to possible scenarios, such as low battery states, backup plans and multiple sequences to deploy the light sail. Space missions demand this foresight, according to Ma.<\/p>\n

“You’re writing code for a spacecraft in space, and once you ship it off and it gets launched, you can’t really change it anymore,\u201d Ma said. \u201cYou have to think more carefully, do a lot more rigorous testing to make sure what you’re going to do is gonna work, and simulate everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

After reviewing the initial data received by the CubeSat, the team chose the simplest light sail deployment once contact returned, skipping the optional spin sequence before releasing the light sail \u2014 a step that might stabilize it but added unnecessary complexity.<\/p>\n

Finally, the team received another message from the CubeSat at 8:47 p.m. on Wednesday. Although the message confirmed the onboard computer processed the command, the team had no way to know whether the deployment had succeeded until the next downlink.<\/p>\n

Then, a ground station in the Canary Islands received a signal<\/a> from one of the light sail\u2019s ChipSats at 5:06 a.m. on Thursday. Since this first signal, light sail data continued to stream into various ground stations around the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cCubeSat mission operations can often be chaotic, and Alpha is no exception,\u201d wrote Umansky-Castro in an email to The Sun. \u201cThe first two days have been full of highs celebrating initial success, worrisome lows when things became problematic, and then pure shock, disbelief, and tears of joy when we reached our mission goals.\u201d<\/p>\n

The team will continue to collect and analyze the light sail\u2019s data until it falls back to Earth, burning up in the atmosphere. The new information sets the stage for developing free-flying light sails that can steer and maneuver away from Earth using sunlight alone. Someday, these light sails may reach the Moon or Mars and could even help ChipSats survive atmospheric entry, according to Umansky-Castro.<\/p>\n

Beyond the technical accomplishments, the Alpha CubeSat team celebrates how much they have learned.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cGoing from never building a spacecraft before to being an expert on how to build one, I’m going to take that with me wherever I go,\u201d Umansky-Castro said. \u201cThis has been an amazingly impactful project.\u201d<\/p>\n

Laine Havens can be reached at\u00a0lfh36@cornell.edu.<\/p>\n

Read More<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Alpha CubeSat team \u2014 a student-led group in Cornell\u2019s Space Systems Design Studio that creates spaceflight technology…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":409880,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[49,48,61],"class_list":["post-409879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}