Finally, the solar arrays managed to work themselves open a little bit during the vibration test. These arrays are spring-loaded and tied against the spacecraft using burn wires. When it's time to deploy the arrays, the burn wires heat until they sever, and the spacecraft's side panels swing open. But on two of the four solar arrays, the burn wires are connected on just one corner, making the panels susceptible to twisting and bending. Riki Munakata of Ecliptic Enterprises Corporation told me the team is still determining exactly what caused the panels to jiggle open. After that, they'll come with a plan for a fix.

The vibration test results have been presented to NASA's Launch Services Program, which oversees ELaNa, the agency's Educational Launch of Nanosatellites program. Once the three problems are corrected, LightSail will go through a second round of vibration testing. Then it can move on to the final test: a trip through the thermal vacuum chamber. This means the spacecraft won't be ready for final integration by Nov. 1 as originally planned, but Cal Poly is generously granting the team an extension. All of the Atlas V-bound CubeSats must be ready for a mission readiness review currently scheduled for early December, so as always, the clock is ticking. But for now, the LightSail-A test mission has survived to fight another day.