Following a week of silence caused by a software fault on the LightSail spacecraft it started communicating with Earth earlier today.
LIGHTSAIL CONTACT! Cal Poly received two beacon packets today during a pass at 5:21 EDT (21:21 UTC). Initial analysis shows reboot occurred.
— Jason Davis (@jasonrdavis) May 30, 2015
As the tweet above shows something caused the spacecraft to reboot, at present they don’t know exactly why the reboot happened. The next priority is to attempt two way communication, and also refine it’s orbit to allow better communications.
They will now prioritize the deployment of the Solar Sails in case another issue happens.
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