The last time LightSail checked in was Wednesday, June 10 at 11:29 p.m. EDT. The corresponding beacon packet, which turned out to be the mission's last, displayed a real-time clock value of 1,837,416 seconds—21 days since launch on May 20. The gyroscopes, which were able to capture snapshots of the spacecraft’s tumble rate after every reboot, showed LightSail tumbling at 6.7, 2.4, and 0.3 degrees per second about its X, Y and Z axes. The Z-axis runs lengthwise through the oblong CubeSat; if LightSail were a gigantic top with its sails parallel to the floor, it was hardly spinning at all.

The day after sail deployment on June 8, LightSail’s rotational rate was a leisurely 116 seconds, according to observers using a wide-field survey telescope in Russia. That changed as the spacecraft dipped deeper into the atmosphere. By June 11, the rate had sped up to 36 seconds. On the day before reentry, it was 21 seconds.

On Sunday, Cal Poly’s Justin Foley heard from LightSail on its final ground station pass of the day, which began at 12:52 p.m. EDT. It was overflight number 223, and it would be the last time the spacecraft would phone home—even though it wasn't much of a conversation, with LightSail continuing to speak in gibberish. The signals in Justin’s waterfall spectrum shift left to right like a wailing ambulance changing its pitch as it speeds by stopped traffic.