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Launch Date for First Solar Sail due Monday

Posted by Zonk on from the fwoosh dept.

PGillingwater writes "The Planetary Society (home of SETI) is planning to launch the first Solar Sail Spacecraft, Cosmos 1, later this month. The exact launch date is scheduled to be announced on Monday, May 9. This event represents one of the first privately-funded space missions with the objective of pure research. It will be launched from a Russian submarine in the Barents Sea. The spacecraft consists of a body surrounded by 8 triangular sails, that will use the tiny force of reflected sunlight to (potentially) accelerate to tremendous speeds. Unfortunately, the craft is not expected to leave Earth's orbit due to degradation of the mylar materials, but should be a proof of concept for subsequent missions."

4 of 181 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Heartening news by jarich · · Score: 4, Insightful
    solar sailing is a great thing, not to ship a few carcasses to another planet, but because it lets us do great science.

    But if theren't any carcasses around to get the "great science" and do something with it, the value of "great science" is somewhat diminished. ;)

    Unless you believe in pure research for it's own sake...

    --
    Agile Artisans
  2. Re:Degradation? by attonitus · · Score: 4, Insightful
    To combat this, and see how it performed out of orbit, could it not have been launched from orbit?

    RTA. It is launched from orbit. A Volna rocket (plus some other bits and pieces) places the spaceship in orbit, where it will sit for a few days before the sail is deployed.

    What's more, you might want to think about what being "out of orbit" actually means. The moon is in orbit around the earth. I expect that if they got it that far (or to the same gravitational potential), they'd be very pleased with themselves. Although given that it's an experimental craft it might be more useful to them if they kept it closer.

  3. Re:Launching from a Russian Nuke Sub! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Seriously, this sounds like the Russians are developing a "stealth" satellite launch capability.

    No, it sounds like they're desperate for cash and have huge amounts of military hardware lying around. Selling launch capability to the highest bidder is preferable to selling ICBMs to the highest bidder.

  4. Re:not the first by WolfWithoutAClause · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That was a suborbital launch. This is an orbital launch; so they'll actually be able to measure how well it works in practice.

    --

    -WolfWithoutAClause

    "Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"