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."

Comments

"Bummer"

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Deja Vu

[rufusdufus]

I swear I remember this happening before.

uh oh

[MrDoh!]

I'm just waiting for when it comes back as a near omnipotent being and starts demanding to see it's creator.

Always the risk.

[reality-bytes]

I really rather hope this project is okay and only suffering from a 'glitch'. (ie: unexpected orbit)

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 /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.

Re:Always the risk.

[Rei]

If you want to know what the people organizing the mission are thinking, the Planetary Society's Latest Update section is a good spot to go. As it stands, the following has been stated:

* The signal didn't dissapear suddenly when the kick fired - it became irregular, and then dissapeared after three minutes.

* The signal was received clearly after launch for six minutes.

* There were irregular readings coming from the Volna; however, clearly the craft detached, or there wouldn't have been six minutes of signal.

* STRATCOM can't find the satellite. That doesn't mean that it's gone - only that it's not where they told them to look. Likewise, the lack of ground station reception could mean the same thing. It could be in the wrong orbit, which is actually a more common phenominon than a total craft loss.

* The chance of signal acquisition at the early two stations was only considered marginal to begin with. The big test will be at the permanent stations in Paska Ves, and especially the Tarusa and Bear lakes.

* Not receiving a signal from a spacecraft during the first few orbits is "not extremely unusual". Nonetheless, they do sound a bit nervous.

Presumably...

[Otter]

...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.

Re:Presumably...

[Tackhead]

>...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.

In other words, what you're trying to say is that somewhere downrange of post-Soviet Russia, solar sail will eventually find yo*CRUNCH*
NO CARRIER

Re:Presumably...

[TheKidWho]

I know what really happened

You see, the Russians never launched Cosmos 1, they realized that these guys would be a bunch of suckers so what they did, is they got them to pay for the launch, and then launched their own new spy satellite In the same orbit that Cosmos 1 was supposed to be in. And now they are going to tell them "tough luck, you must have out bad communications equipment on her or something". So the Americans pay the money, and the Russians get to launch their spy satellite.

Next Week on Conspiracy Theory 101
Sony and Microsoft are really in bed against Nintendo!

Bummer indeed

[J05H]

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!

Re:Interstellar

[Council]

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.

I think the theory is you get up to a pretty high speed by the time you leave the solar system, then coast. You'd better be sure you can stop at the right place, though.

I'm sure people have figured that out. Obviously you run the process in reverse to slow down when you approach the star. But what if you can only shed half your speed by the time you get to the planet? (that is, if the other star is smaller, the planet further out, etc)?

Anyone?

Re:Possible bad news:

[Anonymous Coward]

Engineer #1: A few hundred kilometers that way or this way wouldn't matter...
Engineer #2: Miles
Engineer #1: What do you mean "miles"?

pwnd!

Of course they can't find it...

[centauri]

... it must be halfway to Coruscant by now.

Re:Did they program it in miles again?

[Rei]

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. :)

Re:Did they program it in miles again?

[gardyloo]

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.

Re:Interstellar

[cahiha]

Solar sails aren't driven by solar wind or protons, they are driven by light (photons).

An interstellar voyage might be possible, but would probably require a laser or microwave system aimed at the sail for much of its journey (a brief "push" like that is also being tested as part of this experiment).

Spaceflight now has the scoop

[fname]

Spaceflight Now has posted a story about the launch. The 1st stage failed after 83 seconds.

It's on mars..

[multipartmixed]

...hanging out with the Vikings.

Of course they can't hear it!

[ZSpade]

It's in space!

Re:How does it stop?

[g-san]

It uses a solar anchor.