Lightsail 2 certainly took quite a nosedive! And it didn't even circularize first. From planetary.org/mission-control
I wonder - did they use the sail as a giant aerobrake to bring it down quickly? At what point was there a crossover from primarily "photobraking" to primarily aerobraking forces?
It seems that NASA's Next-Generation Solar Sail Mission stated goals are to be a technology demonstrator for future solar sail missions. My guess is that it's one of those 90 day missions that if it work well they'll keep operating it much longer.
(I'm looking for the "why are missions always about 90 days" question to link here but can't find it right now)
I'm not advocating watching/listening, but it exists. I don't know if there is any actual technical explanation, or if all the plots of data is for other types of propulsion that don't break the laws of physics.
so he should be demonstrating it flying around. ought to be pretty convincing
obviously it's total bunk, but hey, at least it's a refreshing change from "is it a measurement we didn't take carefully enough, or have we broken physics? I'm great so I probably broke physics!"
