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Mon 20 Jun, 2005 06:15 pm
Into Orbit (Maybe Beyond) on Wings of Giant Solar Sails
By WARREN E. LEARY
Published: June 21, 2005
In an effort to promote space exploration, a private group plans today to launch the first spacecraft to sail in Earth orbit on the solar wind.
If successful, the mission will provide scientific proof for a concept that has captivated science fiction for decades - that ships can travel great distances across the heavens under the power of giant solar sails nudged by the faint energy of light itself.
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Rick Sternbach/The Planetary Society
A rendering of Cosmos 1, sailing on solar winds, reflecting Earth while in flight.
Forum: Space and the Cosmos
The satellite, called Cosmos 1, was built in Russia to the specifications of the Planetary Society, a group based in Pasadena, Calif., that raised almost $4 million for the project.
The spacecraft is to be launched at 3:46 p.m. Eastern time from a submerged Russian submarine in the Barents Sea. Cosmos 1 is to be carried into a near circular polar orbit atop a three-stage Volna rocket, a ballistic missile converted for commercial use.
If it reaches orbit, 500 miles above the Earth, Cosmos 1 will then try to extend eight triangular sail blades, each almost 50 feet long, giving the craft the appearance of a giant silver windmill. Over a period of weeks, controllers hope to stir the sails to gather enough sunshine to change the spacecraft's orbit.
"We've waited a long time for this and we're excited," said Dr. Louis D. Friedman, project director and executive director of the society, who became fascinated with the solar sail concept years ago while working for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and in private industry.
"We want to spur exploration of this novel technology and get the major space agencies and others to do bigger missions away from the Earth, where we can really see it work," he said. "We're hoping Cosmos 1 blazes a new trail in solar system exploration that eventually may lead to the stars."
A secondary goal, he continued, is to encourage the role of private space enthusiasts and commercial companies in exploration.
Although Cosmos 1 would be the most ambitious solar sail test thus far, NASA, the European Space Agency and Russia have done their own testing, and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency deployed two solar sails on a suborbital flight last year.
The mission became possible for the Planetary Society, which has 100,000 members worldwide, because of low-cost launching and spacecraft-building options available in Russia.
The society contracted with the Lavochkin Association, a spacecraft builder, and the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences to build and equip the satellite, and the Makeyev Rocket Design Bureau for launching services.
Half the cost is being paid by Cosmos Studios of Ithaca, N.Y., an entertainment media company led by Ann Druyan, the widow of the astronomer Carl Sagan, a Planetary Society founder and sun sail enthusiast. The rest of the project costs are being covered by donations from Peter Lewis, a philanthropist, and society members, Dr. Friedman said.
The 275-pound spacecraft has two cameras as well as sensors to measure solar radiation pressure and small changes in the satellite's velocity. Apart from propulsion, the craft is powered with electricity from four solar panels. It has two radio systems as well as a sun sensor and gyroscopes to orient it in space.
The eight sails, made of thin plastic Mylar film coated with aluminum on one side, are packed into coffee-can-sized containers. Once in orbit, hollow tubes made of a denser plastic material are inflated with nitrogen and pull the attached, folded sails from their containers and hold them in rigid triangular shape. Each sail blade has a surface of about 6,500 square feet.
Solar sailing uses light instead of wind. The idea is that photons - the particles that make up light - have enough energy and momentum to exert a tiny force when they hit the sail and light is reflected. Over time, this steady, infinitesimal force drives the space sailing vehicle.
They launched it today!?!
Wow.... I didn't hear anything about this! And I listen for this kind of thing. Here's the picture that goes with the article.
By Gina Keating
PASADENA, Calif. (Reuters) - Tracking stations failed to pick up signals from an experimental solar-driven orbiter launched on Tuesday from a Russian submarine, raising the prospect the mission had failed.
Privately funded Cosmos 1, the world's first solar-sail spacecraft, blasted off in a converted Russian intercontinental ballistic missile from the Barents Sea at the start of a mission that cost $4 million.
Its Planetary Society sponsors had hoped the craft, which was intended to deploy a petal-shaped solar sail to power its planned orbit around Earth, would demonstrate that sunlight could power interplanetary space travel.
A portable tracking station in Russia's Kamchatka peninsula, manned by a volunteer with an antenna, picked up Doppler data showing the spacecraft's velocity, but the feed was cut off as the craft's "kick motor" apparently ignited to lift it into orbit, backers said.
That was followed by over two hours of radio silence as mission organizers, operating from the Planetary Society's bungalow in Pasadena, California, attempted to track the orbiter's expected path across the Pacific and then back over Europe.
Another portable tracking station in the Marshall Islands was also unable to detect the craft's passage about a half hour after takeoff, backers said.
The spacecraft was also not detected by permanent ground tracking stations in Alaska, the Czech Republic or by two stations outside Moscow, they said.
Jim Cantrell, project operations manager for Cosmos 1, said it was possible the Russian missile had put the spacecraft into an orbit that was not the planned trajectory, accounting for the apparent absence of the craft.
"It was not where we told them it would be," he said of the tracking stations. "It was very possible that they did not see it and it went by them."
The project started as a dream held by Planetary Society founders Carl Sagan, the late science fiction writer, Bruce Murray and Louis Friedman, who proposed sending a solar-sail craft to rendezvous with Halley's Comet in the 1970s.
Sagan's widow, Ann Druyan, provided most of the funding for the mission through her entertainment company, Cosmos Studios.
Planners had played down the prospect for success given the tall odds against the solar sail.
"It will be a giant leap forward ... if it succeeds," Murray told reporters before the launch. "It will be a not-surprising failure if it doesn't."
The first-stage booster failed.
Maybe there is a loose $4 million lying around to try it again.
the failure was not in the concept orin the high tech aspect. It was just plain rookie crappy equipment. The Russians have consistently lost these type boosters about 1/3 of their launches. Launching from a sub only increases the failure factor by at least 2 times.
Why did they want to launch from a sub anyway?
[quote=" Why did they want to launch from a sub anyway?[/quote]
I think it had to do with the orbit they were trying to achieve. The need a high latitude launch.
I've long wondered the same thing. The 60s novel by Philip Wylie, called Triumph,had subs that could launch satellites. I wondered then why it was tried.
The technology is proven , dont get me wrong. Its just that there are at least 2 separate missile launch sequences
1 and air blast that shoots the missile out of the sub silo
2 an ignition and launch
It appears that this second part had some uhhh "problems"
Russia has a series of high latitude launch areas on land. Its Russian summer no?
Where did they launch this, under the ice cap?
I think it was in the Chukchi Sea
The satellite had sails. They had to launch it from sea. :wink:
But on a serious note. I am wondering if it is possible to tack into the solar wind.
Don't you need the resistance of the boat and the rudder in the water to actually steer into the wind?
Stumble It!
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