Solar Sails Now Visible Every Night Above Washington, Oregon, Coast: New Satellite

Published 8/31/24 at 8:25 p.m.
By Oregon Coast Beach Connection

(Portland, Oregon) – If you're outside tonight (and now most nights) in areas like Portland, Ashland, Seattle, Bandon, Westport, Yachats or Yakima, take a look up. You may see something you've never seen before.

Tonight (Saturday) marks the visibility of something new in the skies: a cutting-edge satellite that uses solar sails rather than thrusters, and it's going to be visible every night. Yes, it's like that episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine come alive.

Except this one's not Bajorian. It's NASA's Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3), and it has just successfully hoisted its solar sails. ACS3 is designed for low-cost space missions, looking at near-Earth asteroids, space weather (as in aurora predictions), or communications relays.

“Just as a sailboat is powered by wind in a sail, solar sails employ the pressure of sunlight for propulsion, eliminating the need for conventional rocket propellant,” NASA said. “NASA’s Advanced Composite Solar Sail System is now fully deployed in space after a successful test of its sail-hoisting boom system. Mission operators confirmed success at 1:33 p.m. EDT (10:33 a.m. PDT) on Thursday, Aug. 29, after receiving data from the spacecraft.”

According to Portland astronomy expert Jim Todd at OMSI, you'll be able to see it from Earth a lot – but depending on location. For those of us in the Willamette Valley, Vancouver, Wash., Medford, Bend or the Oregon coast or Washington coast, it's going to be appearing nightly.

ISS above Portland with a hint of the aurora borealis / Oregon Coast Beach Connection

“Now, with the sail fully extended, the Solar Sail System may be visible to Portland nightly,” Todd told Oregon Coast Beach Connection. “To the unaided eye it appears as dim point of light generally traveling from south to north that does not twinkle and moves against the stars in the background.”

You can see Portland times here at heavens-above. Checking the site for other areas around Oregon, Washington or the coastlines, the times and brightness of the object are just about identical. However, the farther north or south you go from Portland there may be slightly fewer sightings.

Yet for just about every area Oregon Coast Beach Connection was able to check, everything from La Push to Port Orford and Eugene to Bellingham will often get at least a couple of flyovers each night.

“At faint magnitude of +4 to +8, It will be at a brightness of the stars of Ursa Minor or The Little Dipper,” Todd said. “Best viewed away from bright city lights and with a pair of binoculars.”

That makes the coastlines of Oregon and Washington and any rural area perfect for spotting the new celestial cohort.

Tonight (Saturday) is a great example of one sighting.

“One of the next best sightings of ACS3 will be on Saturday, August 31st,” Todd said. “Portland viewers can see the solar sail at dim magnitude of +4.8, rises from SE horizon at 9:32 p.m., reach its highest altitude of 88 degrees at 9:37 p.m. NE, and end at 9:44 p.m. NW. ACS3 will be visible nightly.”

Another good one pops up on September 3 for all areas of the Oregon coast and Washington coast, as well as inland. At about 9:31 p.m., it's again visible as 4.8. A few days later, on September 9, it's a magnitude 4.9 at 9:29 p.m. Most other sightings are extremely dim, at a magnitude 5.5 or higher.

Oregon Coast Beach Connection

The craft itself is only about the size of a loaf of bread, but the sails are about half the size of a tennis court. Todd said it's orbiting 600 miles above us.

“The sail will appear as a square, with an area of approximately 860 square feet (80 square meters),” Todd said.

Aboard the craft are four cameras, and images from those will be available after September 4.

See Washington Coast Weather - Oregon Coast Weather

“During the next few weeks, the team will test the maneuvering capabilities of the sail in space,” NASA said. “Raising and lowering the orbit of the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System spacecraft will provide valuable information that may help guide future concepts of operations and designs for solar sail-equipped science and exploration missions.”

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Andre' GW Hagestedt is editor, owner and primary photographer / videographer of Oregon Coast Beach Connection, an online publication that sees over 1 million pageviews per month. He is also author of several books about the coast.

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