14 DAY TRIAL // The idea of solar sails was first introduced in popular culture by none other than Carl Sagan, more than 40 years ago. This particular technology was not a priority for scientists in the past decades, with very few exceptions, but The Planetary Society and Bill Nye want to change that by launching a small spacecraft called CubeSat that will be powered by light.
The principle behind the technology is quite simple. The light particles, the photons, don't have any mass, but they do have a lot of energy. The spacecraft deploys a large solar sail, which is bombarded with light. The acceleration is very small, but constant, which means that a spacecraft can achieve great speed in a relatively short amount of time.
CubeSat to use Linux
Even if this particular piece of information is not available on the Kickstarter page, it was revealed in an AMA session on Reddit, which was held by Bill Nye himself. To make things even more interesting, he also said that it would be possible to SSH into the spacecraft.
"The software is Linux-based. I just recently learned that, providing we have a stable link, we can actually SSH into the spacecraft, which I find very cool. The control sequences are automated. There are sun sensors that locate the sun and tack based on that," said Bill Nye on Reddit.
The idea of a community-funded spacecraft is a great one, especially since they don't ask for a lot of money. Granted, most of the people who will send money to the Kickstarter project won't get much in return, but they will have the opportunity to maybe participate in making history.