Cal Poly played a crucial role in establishing a new method for space travel, Cal Poly computer science professor John Bellardo told a packed crowd at Good Morning SLO, a monthly gathering put on by the SLO Chamber of Commerce. Bellardo, director of the Cal Poly CubeSat lab, has been involved with the Planetary Society’s Lightsail2 project since its inception.
The project used solar sails to propel a CubeSat, or mini-satellite, through space with photons from the sun.
“It was actually a very interesting challenge taking that large sail and packing it into one of these loaf-of-bread-sized spacecraft,” Bellardo told the crowd.
