See A Solar Sail In The Night Sky - NASA Explains How - video Dailymotion

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NASA's Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3) will be visible from the ground. Find out when you can see it on the NASA app on a mobile device.   Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

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00:00A NASA solar sail that you can spot from the ground?

00:04There's a new opportunity to observe a bright NASA spacecraft

00:08sailing across the night sky.

00:10NASA's Advanced Composite Solar Sail System, or ACS-3,

00:14is a small satellite that's testing new technologies in low-Earth orbit.

00:18It recently deployed its 30-foot-wide solar sails.

00:22These are a means of propulsion that could allow small spacecraft

00:25to sail on sunlight.

00:27The ACS-3 solar sails are highly reflective

00:30and make the spacecraft appear nearly as bright as Sirius,

00:34the brightest star in the sky.

00:36You can find out when the solar sail spacecraft will pass over your location

00:40using the NASA app on your mobile device.

00:43Stay up to date on NASA's missions exploring the solar system and beyond

00:47at science.nasa.gov.

00:50I'm Preston Dyches from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory,

00:53and that's What's Up for this month.

00:55NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

See A Solar Sail In The Night Sky - NASA Explains How

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