Solar Sail Launch Date Set

Posted by timothy on Wednesday November 10, 2004 @03:18AM from the good-luck-out-there dept.

smooth wombat writes "Get out your PDAs and set aside March 1, 2005. That is date the solar sail, named Cosmos 1, is set to be launched from a submerged Russian submarine in the Barents Sea. If the sail cannot be launched on that date the launch window extends to April 7. The goal of the mission is to be the first controlled solar-sail flight. The project is being undertaken by The Planetary Society, which was co-founded by Carl Sagan. Space.com also has a writeup about the launch. The announcement of the launch date coincided with Carl Sagan's birthday. Sagan would have been 70 years old. He served as President of The Planetary Society until his death in 1996."

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Re:How controlled is controlled by pragma_x · 2004-11-10 04:00 · Score: 4, Interesting

But even a sailboat cannot sail directly /into/ the wind.

It might be able to to sail (indirectly) towards the sun, if it uses gravity to tack. This is akin to how a sailboat tacks by using its keel as an opposing force to the wind. Also, positioning the sails perpendicular to the solar wind will also allow it to use a local gravity well (Earth, Venus, Saturn, etc) more effectively.