Slashdot Mirror
First Controllable Solar Sail Launched Today
clustermonkey writes "The first controllable solar sail was launched earlier today from a Russian sub in the Barents Sea. The Planetary Society, founded by Carl Sagan, organized the project and were funded by Cosmos Studios, founded by Sagan's widow. There have been 2 other solar sail deployments by others, but this will be the first to attempt controlled flight. The sail is scheduled to deploy June 25." All may not be well, though: Snot Locker writes "The Cosmos 1 Weblog is showing that, although the launch initially looked successful, they can't seem to find it or hear it. Bummer. Previous Slashdot coverage on the Cosmos 1 Solar Sail mission can be found here."
It's a bit more than a "Bummer":
Engineer #1: Yessiree, that solar sail is up there! This calls for a celebration!
Engineer #2: Um. Where is it?
Engineer #1: [points] Up there!
Engineer #2: Where up there?
Engineer #1: Way, way up there.
Engineer #2: You have no idea, right?
Engineer #1: [weak laugh] Nah.
Engineer #1: [shrug] Bummer.
I wonder how well this kind of propulsion will work in interestellar space where there is no solar wind, let alone enough protons from one direction.
Maybe they'll figure out how to tack eventually...
I swear I remember this happening before.
I'm just waiting for when it comes back as a near omnipotent being and starts demanding to see it's creator.
Waiting for an amusing sig.
The requested URL (science/05/06/21/2251211.shtml?tid=160&tid=126&t
...
Unfortunately I can't locate a google cache for the missing spacecraft.
Anyone able to post a mirror?
I really rather hope this project is okay and only suffering from a 'glitch'. (ie: unexpected orbit)
/is found and they get a sucessful experiment. I would be good to prove that solar-sailing is a viable solar-locomotion concept rather than just proving that electronics packages are fragile things.
The trouble is, every time you take what is essentially a robotically controlled device and send it into space giving it a good *shake* in the process (rockets really do vibrate a lot), you run the risk of breaking something.
Of course, you combat this by duplicating as much of the systems as you can but when your experiment requires a very low mass (ala solar sail controller) I wonder how much redundancy is possible?
Still. I hope Cosmos sparks back to life
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
...if the craft suffered "failure to enter orbit at all", presumably that means it hit space and kept going, right? I'd imagine someone would have noticed a Russian ICBM falling randomly out of the sky.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
When I tied a Keep on Truckin' T-shirt to an Estes Andromeda.
There is a chance that it will succeed in deploying. If it's lost, it's double the downer: I helped pay for it as a Planetary Society member. PS also developed a Mars Microphone for the MPL (lost), DVD and sundial for current rovers and a balloon-borne "snake" of sensors that never flew. Dammit, I want this one to work, finally.
ad astra!
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
here
In short, at 83rd second engine stopped working for unknown reason, and the whole thing is currently being intensively searched for. Probably Russian ICBMs are not so good for launching satellites after all.
Just like some other craft we happen to know.
You have two hands and one brain, so always code twice as much as you think!
This is from Reuters, via CNN:
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.
This includes stations in Russia's Kamchatka peninsula, the Marshall Islands, Alaska, the Czech Republic, and two stations outside Moscow.
Hopefully it's a temporary problem, or just a miscalculated orbit.
Its certainly apparant that this sail is a huge step forward in space exploration as a whole. Whats even better is that the entire project cost around $4 million to get on the ground.
:
For those wandering what the mission will entail exactly, its quite simple
Firstly, the craft must enter orbit.
After a short time, the aluminium solar sails will unfurl.
The speed and trajectory will be continually monitored as per the estimates of the Cosmos crew.
Lastly, the craft will keep heading outwards from low-earth orbit, thus concluding the mission and proving that solar sails are a viable and worthwhile method of space exploration.
I wonder how well this kind of propulsion will work in interestellar space where there is no solar wind, let alone enough protons from one direction.
... coast ... -Pushx0.01 + -Pushx0.02 + -Pushx0.03 + -Pushx0.04 + -Pushx5 + -Pushx6 and you're there.
Let's visualize someone on a bike. They stand at the top of a hill (solar radiation effect, closer to the sun, more there is). They peddle enough to get going (ion drive or solar sail). Then they pick up speed rapidly as they go down the hill.
Once they reach the bottom of the hill, where there isn't enough material to push them they fold up the sail - or in our bike version, they let the mechanism keep them moving forward.
During this time the sail is folded - like the biker bent forward to lower wind resistance. As they approach the destination, based on speed, solar radiation - or for a bike, based on how steep and high the next hill is - they eventually unfurl the sail.
Pushx5 + Pushx4 + Pushx3 + Pushx2 + Pushx1
The advantage over a bike is that as you go up the hill (into the solar radiation), you get pulled in by gravity and since your sails are collapsed there is not much push back.
Simple.
Yes, I know it's not linear, I'm just trying to help you visualize it. We can deal with the space-time continuum effects another time as well.
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What would be really cool is if it came back online in a week or so, and was many hundreds of thousands of miles away already...
DAMN YOU OCTODOG! DAMN YOU TO HELL!
You made up an issue, just so you can rant about imperial measurement.
what an ass.
also, it's Reagans fault.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
...Tron? ;D
BytesTemplar.com
Some Carribean nations also still use the English system.
Officially they don't. Cuba, Haiti, and other sovereign nations use metric. Dutch, French, and other nation's possessions (like the French West Indies departements of Gaudaloupe) use their mother countries metric as well.
The only exceptions are possessions - not nations - of the USA.
Here endeth the lesson.
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You forgot one step:
Lastly, the solar wind will shred the sails of this craft, as we have not yet developed a material light enough for solar sails, yet robust enough to withstand long-term exposure to the solar wind.
Still perfectly valid for proof-of-concept, but a good long way from practical application.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
... it must be halfway to Coruscant by now.
Don't blame me, I voted for Durga.
Actually, I'm betting that this time it was due to a spelling error. The sub that launched the Volna rocket was the Borisoglebsk, The first receiving station was at Petropavlovsk on the Kamchatka penninsula. The temporary ground station to pick it up next was on Majuro. Then it will next contact Panska Ves in the Czech republic. It's not until the ground stations at the Tarusa and Bear Lakes that the spelling becomes sufferable. :)
The War of 1812... the good 'ol days when the federal government actually tried to save New Orleans.
also, it's Reagans fault.
...
Huh? because he signed the SALT II accords that caused the Russian ICBM to become available cheap?
How is that his fault?
Since they saved a lot by buying an ICBM that was supposed to be destroyed, they could always buy another
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The spacecraft is missing... It's kind of poetic that the article reporting that fact would be missing, too.
According to the official timeline the first high-quality ground station contact will be approximately Jun 22 04:23 UTC (Jun 21 21:23 PDT) - that is 8 h 37 m into the launch, i.e. it hasn't happened yet. I guess someone got a bit overly eager to report news or simply didn't have a clue or something similar in the time-honored Slashdot fashion...
To quote from the official timeline (which I will not link to on Slashdot for obvious reasons):
"First high-quality ground station contacts: Tarusa and Bear Lakes On the spacecraft's fifth orbit around the Earth, its orbital path will finally carry it high across the sky as seen from the Russian ground stations. These contacts should provide good communication from the spacecraft."
As to the passes and communication attempts that have been attempted so far have been attempts during low-quality situations. It sure would have been nice if they went through but it's too early to say either way yet.
this comment is provided "as is" and without any express or implied legibility or congruity [...]
Call is sour grapes if you will, but I'm proud to be an american. Besides, we are forced learn metric in school from the time we're young. We "choose" to be different.
You sure do.
The report of data suddenly looking "noisy" about the time the final stage fired is a pretty classic bad news situation. The sequence is usually: "looking good!" "clean separation!" "5-4-3-2-1,kick motor ignition" data lost followed by, a short time later "radar indicates multiple targets..." Not that I am hoping, but it's a really bad sign. Brett
Spaceflight Now has posted a story about the launch. The 1st stage failed after 83 seconds.
...hanging out with the Vikings.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
What will they think of us as a civilisation; that we launch this craft packed with messages of friendship and names of random people and things on a device designed to kill millions of people?
Me (Blog)
It's in space!
Go ahead and call me unreliable; reliable is just a synonym for predictable.
The United States announced that an unscheduled test of their anti-ballistic missile system succeeded in intercepting a Russian ICBM.
An official Pentagon spokesperson said, "Oops. Sorry about that."
In Soviet Russia, satellite launches YOU!
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
So, by the time it gets to pluto, it'll be gone past in a few milliseconds, at 100,000 miles per hour or something. Forgive me for asking, but...
How do they get the damn thing to stop?!
Even the English no longer use the so-called "english" system.
The Brits had as good a reason to hang on to the old system as the USA - They live next door to a country (France in their case, Canada for the US) who use, nay, popularised the system, and even those insular old traditionalists have realised which system. Just. Works.
BTW, if it's an "english" sytem, why to the Americans have a different-sized "gallon" to the Imperial gallon?
sustainable living
It got high enough to burn up upon reentry, but not high enough to achieve orbit.
That or it's simply not in its intended orbit, in which case reestablishing signal is a matter of finding the thing (which will happen eventually) so that one can figure out which way to point the groundstation antennas.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
...we're just saying that maybe you want to stay inside for the next few days. Perhaps underground. If you decide otherwise and see an unexpected meteor shower, please give us a call.
I think they must be vulcans.
Thats what I reckon anyway.
sorry, how many cubits to a furlong? and how many links a mile? where did they pull all of this from? the metric system has clearly defined origins and logical progression. lets see, ten fingers, ten toes... I'll make a number system based on completely random numbers. luddites...
Kids! Bringing about Armageddon can be dangerous. Do not attempt it in your home!
Y'know, it occurs to me that in order to derive the greatest efficiency of the velocity gained by the use of a solar sail, it would be best to pair it with a Ramjet.
The photons/laser defice against the sail would serve to propel the craft, while the ramjet would, in effect, serve to "pull" the craft.
Now, I don't think such a configuration would serve to double the potential veloctiy, but it would certainly begin to alleviate some of the deficiencies of each.
60 minutes in an hour 24 hours in a day 7 days in a week 52 weeks in a year 365.25 days in a year cant get much more random then that
Earlier today on Spaceflightnow (the quote seems to be gone in the current version of the story), the project leader was quoted as saying something like "there is a significant chance of failure". Similarly, the leader of the ill-fated Beagle 2 Mars lander publicly stated that he estimated the chances of success at about 50-50. I think we could all waste a lot less time if we just ignored missions whose own leaders inspire that much confidence. In space, you have zero tolerance for error, so what may seem like a fairly small probability of failure to a dreamer, in all likelihood means certain doom. I hate being this negative, but people think they can launch just any old septic tank into orbit and get back all this wonderful confirmation of their ideas. No lie, as soon as I read the quote from the leader of this solar sail mission, I gave up, before it was even launched.
It should be illegal to say that freedom of speech should be limited.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
I'll probably get modded down for this, but...
... check
:)
The Project Operations Assistant.
Let's review:
Sexy foreign (to me) accent... check
Geek... check
Cute... check
Knows how to blog... check
Plays with models all day long
Gets to work with stuff that makes a REALLY BIG BOOM... check
Can take a joke... we'll see.
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
Link for those too young to remember.
Signal has been received.
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=4724348
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
really. probably a very regretable action next morning. but hwat esle is ther eto do with ca computer when drunk?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
It appears the spacecraft is still alive, but in a lower orbit than expected. Here is the article.
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
.... of a comment by a Pentagon spokesman after yet another failed anti-missile test: "you have to remember this IS rocket science!"
Don't use ground tracking stations- let the satellite calculate its own position using GPS and then report it through a satellite network.
It's cheaper, and should provide continuous tracking and control anywhere.
I think a standard INMARSAT-C terminal could be used for this purpose, as long as the local oscillator is replaced with a unit that uses the GPS signal to calculate the doppler vector to the satellite and apply a correction to the center frequency (Without doppler correction it would miss the 5kHz channel spacing by a few tens of kHZ!)
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
Spaceflight.com adds:
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?
Thanks for taking the heat off of us for a while.
Either that or: at least our's fail after they get somewhere.
Heroscape, it's like legos combined with anachronistic wargames.
From the story:
the first stage engine experienced "a spontaneous stoppage" 83 seconds into launch. The vehicle was allowed to continue flying because it lacked a destruct system. But there has been no further confirmation of the report.
I just love that. The vehicle was "allowed" to continue to fly, because there's no way in hell they could stop it... Oops.
Well, I hope it's doing ok, wherever it is.
Check out the latest updates!
They have received a brief signal from maybe three ground stations, and the last one was Panska Ves: if this is true then the spacecraft must have reached orbit and not having done only a long suborbital jump to crash in the Pacific.
It's probably in a slightly wrong orbit: this explains the problems in locating and communicating with it.
If in the end this turn out to be a problem with the cheap Russian launcher (probably the upper stage underperformed), maybe the next time can be a good idea to buy a few kilograms aboard an Ariane 5 as an auxiliary payload (just like Smart 1, which was launched together with two big satellites): it's worth every euro of it, and will give them an higher (although highly elliptic) orbit, which is good for a big solar sail to reduce the atmospheric drag.
Anyway: keep your fingers crossed, this may still be a success!
There's a hidden treasure in Python 3.x: __prepare__()
Seems to me the oddball units in the English system were chosen because they make it possible to divide the larger units in lots of ways. There's usually some multiple of 60 involved because you can divide 60 by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15. Factor out one mile = 5280 feet = 60 * 88. The 88 part might be oddball: perhaps it makes the mile close to some distance that was significant to somebody way way back.
Anyway, you're mixing systems. What do cubits have to do with the English system?
RETURN without GOSUB in line 1050
Aliquid melius quam pessimum optimum non est.
Acording to latest news, the sail crashed:r _sail;_ylt=AmNvcJYpkMGq0kI.vYvCMlqs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDM TA3b2NibDltBHNlYwM3MTY-
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050622/ap_on_sc/sola
Ok- so apparently this thing crashed. What I want to know is why is this thing being launched off of a Soviet submarine- or any submarine? Is seems like if you were going to perform a difficult task such as putting a new type of craft into orbit- it might make more sense to do it somewhere where the people who worked on it could do a last minute check of everything. If so- it might be nice to do it in a place where there was room for everyone. ie. not a submarinepThe only advntage I can see is when and if a launch goes bad- the debris lands in the sea- away from people (albeit harder to recover). However, the same thing happens at Cape Canaveral. Sure- Russia is probably a cheaper place to launch from- but surely light populated areas of Siberia would work just as well.
While lots of stuff is metric now...
Most people use the "English" system for distances anyway. No one I know uses km, they all say miles.
And then a lot of people also use things like pints, and then at the same time liters, etc. But, yeah, they have much more metric stuff in daily use.
Looks like the mission got off to a rocky start: Solar sail space launch failed.
For those of you unwilling to read the article, it basically says that the Russian rocket carrying the spacecraft malfunctioned and didn't reach its planned orbit. The solar sail craft appears to be in a lower orbit, unharmed.
Blown away by a freak solar storm, it's now racing away from Earth at 0.1 light speed, its sails in tatters, due to pass Alpha Centauri in a century or so.
What can I say, I'm an amateur science fiction writer. Those little pesky things called 'facts' don't really bother me...
Actually, I'm betting that this time it was due to a spelling error. The sub that launched the Volna rocket was the Borisoglebsk, The first receiving station was at Petropavlovsk on the Kamchatka penninsula. The temporary ground station to pick it up next was on Majuro. Then it will next contact Panska Ves in the Czech republic. It's not until the ground stations at the Tarusa and Bear Lakes that the spelling becomes sufferable. :)
...
Oops, comrade! I said LEFT at Borisoglebsk, not LET IT CRASH at Borisoglebsk
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Who cares? You rarely convert cubits to furlongs. (cubits are even part of the US system, they come from the Bible) I often convert divide a foot into thirds, which the US system does well, while the metric system doesn't.
Perhaps you should grow 2 more fingers. A base 12 system is much nicer to work with. You are used to a base 10 system, because you have 10 fingers.
Actually, Jimmy Carter signed SALT II. [wikipedia.org]
SALT III, SALT II - who cares, it still is why the rockets (ICBMs) were available to be bought cheap - they have to destroy them if they don't use them.
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I was proud to be an American, until reading that from a compatriot...