Author: SM0TGU

From ANS-153:
LightSail is a citizen-funded project from The Planetary Society.
This cubesat will be propelled solely by sunlight, to Earth orbit.
LightSail 2 is scheduled to launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy on
June 22, 2019, and we will attempt the first, controlled solar sail
flight in Earth orbit.

LightSail 2 will ride to space aboard the Department of Defense
Space Test Program-2 (STP-2) mission which will send 24 spacecraft
to 3 different orbits. LightSail 2 itself will be enclosed within
Prox-1, a Georgia Tech-designed spacecraft originally built to demon-
strate close-encounter operations with other spacecraft. Prox-1 will
deploy LightSail 2 seven days after launch.

After a few days of health and status checks, LightSail 2’s four
dual-sided solar panels will swing open. Roughly a day later, four
metallic booms will unfurl four triangular Mylar sails from storage.
The sails, which have a combined area of 32 square meters [344 square
feet], will turn towards the sun for half of each orbit, giving the
spacecraft a tiny push no stronger than the weight of a paperclip.
For about a month after sail deployment, this continual thrust should
raise LightSail 2’s orbit by a measurable amount.

LightSail 2 will fly in a 24-degree inclination, 720 km, circular
orbit. At latitudes of 42 degrees north it will reach a maximum
elevation of 10 degrees above the horizon.

Lightsail-2 has been issued an experimental radio license WM9XPA and
transmit on 437.025 MHz. A morse beacon will transmit the callsign
every 45 seconds. A packet beacon will transmit AX.25, FSK 9K6 bps
data.
Beacon information is available at:
http://tinyurl.com/ANS-153-Lightsail-Morse-Beacon
Documentation of the downlink telemetry data structure is posted at:
http://tinyurl.com/ANS-153-Lightsail-Telemetry

Info from G3VZV:

ESA have just released a new mission update for the ESEO Mission. It can be seen here https://www.esa.int/Education/ESEO/ESEO_mission_updates

We are delighted that the BPSK telemetry transmitter, on our payload, was enabled for a period of just over 200 minutes in orbit!

Although we were not able to announce this activation in advance, more than ten stations around the world successfully received the telemetry on 145.895 MHz and submitted it to the FUNcube Data Warehouse. We are very grateful to them for their support.

Over 50 channels of Real Time and Whole Orbit Data were collected. For example, a number of on-board temperatures are shown in this graph which covers the period from 11:58 to 13:36 UTC

The very last frame received was captured by PQ2HX in Brazil at around 14:17 UTC We are keenly awaiting further possibilities to exercise more of the payload as soon as this becomes possible but, in the meantime, is good to know that all the telemetry channels reported nominal values.