A spacecraft designed to surf on the sun's rays may not get a chance to set its sail.

The Planetary Society's LightSail spacecraft — which launched to space on May 20 — has fallen silent due to a glitch. The satellite didn't phone home during any of its 11 opportunities yesterday, according to the Planetary Society.

This is not the first time it fell silent, either. LightSail didn't communicate with Earth for eight days earlier in its mission after a possible software glitch.

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LightSail — a spacecraft design popularized by famed astronomer Carl Sagan and now by science educator Bill Nye, CEO of the Planetary Society — did manage to deploy its solar panels used to charge the craft on Wednesday. However, ground operators haven't heard from LightSail since. Engineers think that the bread loaf-sized satellite has gone quiet because of a problem with the probe's batteries.

"Following solar panel deployment, it was noticed that all of the battery cells were drawing near zero current," mission manager David Spencer told Jason Davis of the Planetary Society. This means that the panel deployment may have created the issue that put the spacecraft into a silent mode, Spencer said.

The LightSail prototype comes equipped with a large Mylar sail that is the size of a basketball court, and is currently tucked inside the craft. Once unfurled, this sail should allow the craft to use the sun's radiation to propel through space, a cheap form of propulsion that could one day bring small satellites to deep space destinations like Mars or the moon.

The first radio silence began on May 22, two days after launch, and it moved up the timeline for mission managers, who decided to try to deploy its sail manually instead of waiting 28 days after launch for an automatic deployment as originally expected.

Mission controllers were actually planning to deploy the spacecraft's large solar sail on Friday, but the most recent glitch will delay that milestone.

All hope is not lost, however.

It's possible that LightSail will be able to deploy its sail as it continues around Earth in its relatively low orbit. If the problem is that the spacecraft just isn't getting enough power, it could get a boost soon. LightSail's orbit will bring it into more sunlit conditions in the next couple of weeks, potentially allowing the small spacecraft to more effectively power itself, Spencer said.

Of course, that might not fix the problem, depending on the exact nature of the glitch.

If LightSail's battery levels are brought up to snuff and the craft gets in touch with the ground again, mission controllers will likely give the command to deploy the sail, according to Davis.

By design, once the sail deploys, LightSail won't have much time left in orbit. The prototype spacecraft will fall out of orbit not long after its sail deploys, because of its slow orbit speed. The sail will create drag in Earth's upper atmosphere, forcing the craft to fall back to Earth soon after it starts sailing.

Regardless of the fate of this mission, the Planetary Society is planning to launch another full-scale LightSail mission sometime next year. That LightSail will be placed into a higher orbit where it can properly surf on the sun's rays.

Bill Nye and the Planetary Society have launched a Kickstarter campaign, asking people around the globe to help fund the second LightSail mission. At the time of this writing, the organization had raised close to $815,000 for the mission.