When LightSail 2 recently flew south of The Planetary Society's Pasadena, California headquarters, CEO Bill Nye and other staff members stepped outside to listen.

The spacecraft regularly transmits health and status data to its ground stations on Earth—data that you can see displayed in real-time on our mission dashboard. Every 45 seconds, LightSail 2 also squawks Morse code of its radio call sign, WM9XPA. This signal allowed the mission control team at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo to identify LightSail 2's signal on 2 July 2019 shortly after it deployed from its Prox-1 carrier spacecraft.

On 9 September 2019, LightSail 2 testing and operations engineer Justin Foley, who is also a Planetary Society member, brought his amateur radio equipment to The Planetary Society for a LightSail 2 flyover. As Nye and others watched, Foley's radio antenna picked up LightSail 2's Morse code signal and piped it through laptop speakers for everyone to hear.