Russia: Molniya rocket crash will not cancel solar sail launch - Defense Ministry

Novosti ^ | 06/21/05

[TigerLikesRooster]

Molniya rocket crash will not cancel solar sail launch -- Defense Ministry

21:10

MOSCOW, June 21 (RIA Novosti) - The failure of a Molniya carrier rocket launched from Russia's Plisetsk Space Center on Tuesday to orbit a military satellite will not delay the launch from a Russian submarine of a unique spacecraft, Kosmos-1, which is equipped with a "solar sail".

"The launch of the Volna converted ballistic missile is scheduled for 23:46 (Moscow time) June 21, and will be carried out from a Russian submarine in the Barents Sea," a Russian Defense Ministry representative told RIA Novosti.

Kosmos-1 is the world's first attempt to implement the idea of a "solar sail," which will be used to propel the spacecraft along "solar winds," or solar radiation.

If it is put into orbit successfully, the spacecraft, which weighs 112 kilograms, will unfold the solar sail around itself. The sail consists of eight "petals", whose total area of 650 square meters is approximately the size of one and a half basketball courts.

Designed to be in orbit for a month, Kosmos-1 will corroborate Russian and U.S. scientists' calculations and test the hypothesis of flying by means of the solar sail that was first put forward in the 17th century by German astronomer Johann Kepler.

The Russian ballistic missile will place the Mylar sail into an 825-kilometer quasi-polar orbit. Although it formally belongs to the U.S. Planetary Society company, whose founders included the renowned astronomer Carl Sagan, the sail was designed and produced by the Babakin design bureau at the Lavochkin Institute, which is based in the Moscow suburb of Khimki.

An attempt to launch a similar spacecraft from a submarine in the Barents Sea in summer 2001 ended in failure, as was the case with a previous attempt in the spring of the same year.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Why do they insist on launching it from a submarine? Is it partly a military experiment?

[TigerLikesRooster]

Ping!

[RightWhale]

It is commercial and they have done it before.

Also, they may have picked up the signal just now.

[TheMole]

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Solar Sail Lost in Space? 

By Amit Asaravala

Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,67967,00.html

03:44 PM Jun. 21, 2005 PT

PASADENA, California -- The Cosmos solar sail is missing shortly after its launch from a Russian nuclear submarine.

The $4 million Cosmos 1 spacecraft blasted off atop a converted Russian missile at approximately 12:46 p.m. Pacific Time on Tuesday, but ground tracking stations failed to pick up its signal after an initial burst of data, according to mission controllers.

See photos

The U.S. Strategic Command, which monitors launches, also could not detect the spacecraft at its expected position in orbit.

"The news is not good," said Cosmos 1 project operations manager Jim Cantrell. "On the other hand, we do not have direct evidence of a failure…. It's worrisome and it's not what we hoped to have happen."

Developed by the Planetary Society, a Pasadena-based space interest group, Cosmos 1 was to have become the first spacecraft to use nothing more than the energy of sunlight to propel itself into higher orbits around Earth.

The light would have pushed against eight giant sails protruding from the spacecraft, just as ships on Earth are propelled by the wind.

As of 4:00 p.m., mission controllers had conflicting information about what had happened to Cosmos 1. Cantrell said the initial burst of data from the spacecraft meant that the Russian missile successfully put Cosmos 1 in orbit, although possibly not at the right position.

However, that statement was immediately contradicted by Louis Friedman, director of the Planetary Society.

"I think that's a premature conclusion," he said via a conference call from the mission operations center in Moscow.

Friedman said some of the data from the launch may ultimately reveal that the Russian missile did not launch as planned.

Planetary Society members said they will continue searching for a signal from the spacecraft over the next several days.

An earlier version of the Cosmos 1 spacecraft was lost in 2001 in a similar launch. That spacecraft failed to separate from the missile and crashed in Kamchatka.

[taxesareforever]

Sounds quite a bit different than this article:

Report: Sail's rocket failed at +83 seconds
Spaceflight Now ^ | June 21, 2005 | STEPHEN CLARK


Posted on 06/21/2005 5:58:07 PM PDT by cabojoe


Russian sailors launched the world's first solar sail from a nuclear submarine today as planned, but the Cosmos 1 craft's fate remains unknown after the first set of ground station passes turned up no sign of the small satellite. Casting further doubt, the Russian news service ITAR-TASS reported the rocket's first stage failed 83 seconds after liftoff. Confirmation of that story is pending.