The mission team will continue raising LightSail 2's orbit for roughly a month, until the perigee decreases to the point where atmospheric drag overcomes the thrust from solar sailing. During the orbit-raising period, the team will continue optimizing the performance of the solar sail.

"We've been working since sail deployment to refine the way the spacecraft tracks the Sun," said LightSail 2 project manager Dave Spencer. "The team has done a great job getting us to the point where we can declare mission success. Moving ahead, we're going to continue working to tune the sail control performance and see how much we can raise apogee over time."

One such refinement involves LightSail 2's single momentum wheel, which rotates the spacecraft broadside and then edge-on to the Sun each orbit to turn the thrust from solar sailing on and off. Momentum wheels can “saturate,” hitting predefined speed limits, after which they are no longer effective at rotating the spacecraft. Most spacecraft use chemical thrusters to desaturate momentum wheels; LightSail 2 relies on electromagnetic torque rods, which orient the spacecraft by pushing against Earth's magnetic field.

LightSail 2’s momentum wheel currently reaches its saturation limit a couple of times per day, and desaturating the wheel temporarily takes the spacecraft out of its proper orientation for solar sailing. The mission team already applied a software update that increased the time between saturation events, and is also working to automate the desaturation process. Both refinements should result in improved solar sailing performance.