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At the end of August, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced the completion of the process of deploying a solar sail into space as part of the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3) mission.
Now the department has published the first picture of the sail taken by a camera on board the spacecraft that brought it into Earth's orbit. It is expected that in the future solar sails will be used to move satellites in outer space.
The published picture may seem a little confusing. This is due to the fact that the spacecraft rotates slowly in the process of movement in orbit. After collecting a sufficient amount of telemetry data on the operation of the sail and the composite guides holding it, NASA specialists stabilize the position of the device. Probably, after this it will be possible to make more legible pictures.
Four wide-angle cameras are placed in the structure of the spacecraft, one of which took the picture published by NASA. At the bottom of the image you can see "reflective square sails supported by composite beams", and the back side of one of the solar panels is imprinted in the upper part. The elements of the sail look slightly distorted due to the wide-angle field of view of the camera.
