Legendary celebrity-astronomer Carl Sagan dreamed of a spaceship that could travel vast distances through space and be propelled by the tiny particles that make up beams of light. This led to the development of LightSail, which was launched on a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket.

Before the sail deployment, the satellite felt silent twice. These left engineers worrying as problems were reported on a software glitch and an issue with charging the spacecraft batteries.

On Sunday, Engineers sent commands to activate LightSail’s deployment motor when it flew over California. The first attempt was unsuccessful but in the second attempt motor was seen moving before the satellite flew out of range.Read More >>