For the last six weeks, NASA’s been waiting for it’s experimental solar sail satellite, the NanoSail-D, to, well, sail. You see, it’s been stuck in the satellite it was supposed to emerge from (the Fast Affordable Scientific and Technology Satellite or FASTSAT) since December 6. But now, the satellite has finally sprung free and is orbiting the Earth and continuing it’s mission, which, ironically, was to find out if a solar sail satellite could emerge from a satellite.
Now, it didn’t get free because NASA did anything. In fact, they were just surprised as anyone. As FASTSAT project manager Mark Boudreaux said in a press release: “What a pleasant surprise this morning when our flight operations team confirmed that NanoSail-D is now a free flyer.” Which might explain NASA’s new motto: “We just hope things get better after 6 weeks.”