Not long to wait now!

Rolo Tomasi

http://www.planetary.org/solarsail/

mike65

from bbc

Solar sail gets ready for launch

A solar sail spacecraft launches on Tuesday, to demonstrate an elegant new way to power interplanetary probes.

The Cosmos-1 mission is privately funded - half the money will come from a TV studio - and lift-off will be from a Russian submarine in the Barents Sea.

The sail reflects particles of light, or photons, from the Sun, gaining momentum in the opposite direction and driving the spacecraft forward.

Some think solar sails offer a cheaper, faster form of spacecraft propulsion.

The US, European, Japanese and Russian space agencies also have solar sail programmes in the offing.

Speed pick-up

The Planetary Society, based in Pasadena, California, is sponsoring the launch of the $4m (£2.1m) experimental spacecraft. US space agency (Nasa) scientists have reportedly expressed interest in the data it will collect.

After launch, the 99kg (220lbs) Russian-built craft will reach a 804km- (500 mile-) high orbit. It will then take pictures of Earth for four days before unfurling its eight aluminium-backed plastic sail blades into a 30m (100ft) circle.

The craft will orbit Earth once every 101 minutes for weeks. Sunlight on the sails will only increase the speed of the satellite up to 161km/h (100 mph) each day, but the spacecraft should pick up greater speed as time goes on.

Cosmos-1 will be launched into space aboard a modified Volna intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) from a submarine in the Barents Sea. Typically, the Volna does not have enough thrust to reach orbit.

But the missile used for Cosmos-1 will have an added rocket engine (kick stage) of a type used to de-orbit satellites.

The kick-stage engine will provide the additional thrust required to get Cosmos-1 into orbit.

Launch at 17.45 pm Tuesday.

The stuff of science-fiction (sailing to a planet of beautiful exotic female aliens!) becomes reality.

Mike.

GaMMoN

Can it be seen from Ireland?

Rolo Tomasi

yeah should be, if you go to http://www.heavens-above.com and enter your location you'll get maps and times.

Capt'n Midnight

Still seems smaller than these
http://msl.jpl.nasa.gov/QuickLooks/echoQL.html
30.5 m diameter balloon made of 0.0127 mm thick mylar polyester film
...
Echo 1's surface was used to reflect 960 and 2390 Mhz signals.And the Russians have tested mirrors before goal to provide light to sibera during winter

The yanks at one stage were talking about very large ballons - up to 2Km long and 1Km wide - a coke bottle like that would appear as big as the moon. Thankfully the plan was shelved. But it's still technically possible.

GaMMoN

I got this from the news,

According to BBC News the solar sail spacecraft may not have seperated from its booster rocket, officials have said.

Mission scientists are waiting for news since the night launch of the privately fuded Cosmos-1 craft from a Russian submarine in the Barents Sea.

One said there was "no information" whether the sail had successfully seperated from the rocket.

Seanie M

It appears to have failed unfortunately. Click Here

Seanie.

is_that_so

The latest on it , a pity really
http://www.planetary.org/solarsail/latest_update.html

mike65

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4110912.stm

Russian officials said the modified missile carrying the craft failed during firing of its first stage.

Despite announcements by the Russian navy and space agency that the vehicle had been lost, the Cosmos-1 team held out hope throughout Tuesday that the launch had succeeded.

However, that hope has now all but faded. In a statement, mission sponsors the Planetary Society accepted the Russians' conclusion was probably correct.

But, it continued, "there are some inconsistent indications from information received from other sources".

Apparent signals were detected by three ground stations, at Petropavlovsk in Kamchatka, Majuro in the Marshall Islands and Panska Ves in the Czech Republic, the Planetary Society said. It added that doppler data was also detected over one of these stations.

Slim chance

But Jiri Simunek, a scientist at Panska Ves, told the BBC News website that no signal had been detected by the Czech tracking station, "just noise".

Nevertheless, Cosmos-1 scientists said there was still a slim possibility that the craft made it into orbit, though a lower one than expected.

Ah well, sometimes to succeed you need to fail first.

Mike.