NASA Solar Sail Satellite May Not Have Ejected from Mothership After All

A small NASA satellite carrying a folded-up solar sail may not have ejected from its mothership earlier this week after all, the space agency announced late Friday (Dec. 10). NASA had reported that NanoSail-D, which is about the size of a loaf of bread, successfully ejected from the FASTSAT satellite in low-Earth orbit in the early hours of Dec. 6. But the space agency released a status update today (Dec. 10) saying that now they're not so sure. "At this time, it is not clear that NanoSail-D ejected from the Fast, Affordable, Science and Technology Satellite (FASTSAT) as originally stated on Monday, Dec. 6," the statement reads. More

(Source: Space.com - Dec 12)