Just read this on the Register. Seems they are still receiving faint signals...
Re:In Soviet Russia, they don't give up
by
Monkey-Man2000
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Except this is paid for by the Planetary Society, so who knows if they'll build another one. I suspect they will, but it's not because Russians are involved.
-- This post was generated by a Cadre of Uber Monkeys for Monkey-Man2000 (603495).
Re:Contradiction?
by
Neurowiz
·
· Score: 5, Informative
No, that's a legit contradiction. If you go to the Planetary Society's website, you'll find that they are still hunting and there are clear signs that something is screwed up, but the spacecraft may have made it to orbit:
I'm kind of suprised that the Russians are so quick to call "fail" on this, given the conflicting data, but they had a bad karma space day yesterday, what with their other launch of a military payload failing as well.
--
Neurowiz
Re:Three strikes and you're *out*...
by
Rei
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Russian rocket failure rates are about on par with US rocket failure rates; the only thing that I can think of offhand that they've had serious reliability problems with are their mars probes.
The problem is that this wasn't designed to be an orbital vehicle - the Volna is an ICBM, i.e., designed for lofting moderately heavy suborbital payloads. Russia wants a use for the ICBMs that they can't afford to maintain, and is trying to convert them for launching orbital payloads. I.e., Cosmos 1 and its predecessor are being launched on untested payload delivery systems (and hence the low price).
Cosmos 1 was funded by the insurance money from the previous failure, so don't think that this is the end.:)
-- The War of 1812... the good 'ol days when the federal government actually tried to save New Orleans.
Fox = Slashdot != Planetary Society
by
n54
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Why the hell does Slashdot base their "news" on Fox rather than going to the source itself?
Here's the latest (as of this moment) weblog entry from the Planetary Society itself as written by Emily Lakdawalla:
"Jun 22, 2005 | 07:49 PDT | 14:49 UTC The morning after
I showed up here at POP at about 7 am local time. I'm the only one here in the building at the moment. It was a very late night after a very long day yesterday, and we all knew that if anything there would be more people asking questions today; we needed the rest.
Over our night and their day there has been some information coming out of Russia. To recap where we stand: yesterday the launch appeared to happen roughly on time. The Navy reported first stage firing. Then the signal of the spacecraft was detected over the temporary ground station at Petropavlovsk. But it wasn't detected over Majuro, which had us concerned. And then U. S. Strategic Command reported that they did not see our spacecraft in the sky. Later in the afternoon, we heard back from our man in Majuro that he thought actually he may have detected a weak signal. And then we heard the same from Panska Ves via Lou. That all seemed to add up to a consistent story that while there may have been a problem on board, our spacecraft likely was in orbit.
Since then, there has been a new report circulating from Russia:
ITAR-TASS is now quoting officials of the Russian Navy and the Makeyev design bureau as saying that the Volna first stage unexpectedly shut down 83 seconds after lift-off, adding that unlike the standard Volna SLBM the "space version" does not have an automatic destruct system for such an eventuality.
About this, Lou made a statement last night:
Project Director Louis Friedman cautioned that some data point to a launch vehicle misfiring, one that would prevent the spacecraft from achieving orbit. He said, "That the weak signals were recorded at the expected times of spacecraft passes over the ground stations is encouraging, but in no way are they conclusive enough for us to be sure that they came from Cosmos 1 working in orbit." The Russian space agency indicated that the Volna rocket may have had a problem during its first or second stage firing. "This," Friedman noted, "would almost certainly have prevented the spacecraft from reaching the correct orbit."
What this means is that we are still dealing with a very wide range of possibilities for what could have happened yesterday, made even wider by the fact that it kind of sounds like some of the information that we have is contradictory. If the launch vehicle failed, how did we detect signals at Majuro and Panska Ves? On the other side, if the launch vehicle had a problem but still managed to put the spacecraft into some orbit, why didn't Strat Comm see it last night? We don't know what to make of it. We hope to get more information from Lou in an hour or two. Stand by for that."
-- this comment is provided "as is" and without any express or implied legibility or congruity [...]
Re:Fox = Slashdot != Planetary Society
by
n54
·
· Score: 4, Informative
"It's an Associated Press story, you dipshit. Are you seriously asking why we want our news from the actual press instead of somebody's blog?"
For your information it is not "somebody's blog" but the Planetary Society's weblog on the Cosmos 1 launch/project. In other words: directly from the source (the people actually at the hub of information: the Planetary Society) rather than possibly misinterpreted, misunderstood, and generally dumbed down reporting be it by AP, or Fox, or Slashdot.
In a situation where one has conflicting data and reports I think most people would like to get their information directly from those who have the most of it.
-- this comment is provided "as is" and without any express or implied legibility or congruity [...]
Space technology is behind because of wars? I think you're confused. The rockets we see see today are the direct descendants of rockets like the V2. The moon landings were a direct result of competition between the US and the USSR during the cold war - that's why they're no longer happening. The space race is beginning to warm up again because countries like China are threating American military superiority in space.
-- Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Up-do-date Information (?)
by
ClippyHater
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Space Is Expensive...If You Want To Succeed.
by
ausoleil
·
· Score: 3, Informative
As far as space launches go, this was an incredibly inexpensive one. However, that does not say that it was cheap for the Sagan folks. Hopefully, they will bounce back and get their bird up into space sooner rather than later.
To those who criticize NASA, which is hamstrung by its own bureaucracy and an overall lack of fncding, one would be remiss to fail to point out that they have indeed placed two probes on Mars recently, vehicles that have vastly exceeded their life-expectancies and remain useful and operational.
That also extends to the Space Shuttle. Those who constantly criticize it are either ignoring or are ignorant of its history: the Shuttle was a compromised design due to politics rather than technology, and NASA has been "stuck" with a vehicle it would rather not have initially had. On that point, the current design of the shuttle was certainly not what NASA wanted. As the mnost complex mechanical system on the planet, it is bound for failure, and it will not surprise me when all of them are lost in flight accidents.
That's why SpaceShipOne excited me so much on a personal level. It was a successful project, done relatively inexpensively and proved that private funding could succeed in putting a bird up in to technical space. By itself, SS1 is hardly a blip in space history, but it will serve as impetus to what comes next. Fresh eyes coming up with new solutions is a great idea.
The bottom line is this: Today, space flight is expensive, at least if you want a high probability of success. While it is tragic that the Solar Sail probe was lost, it does serve as yet another reminder that "on the cheap" programs prove that you get what you pay for. If you want to go to space, bring copious amounts of cash. It may seem wasteful in the midst of success, but in the midst of failures such as this, the costs suddenly become reasonable.
Re:Wasting Money
by
timster
·
· Score: 2, Informative
This particular venture was privately financed, so it essentially amounts to a bunch of people getting together and flying a really expensive kite. So now is a time we can skip the "space is waste" crap.
-- I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
Nope - the craft is going into a polar orbit, so it's actually slightly better to launch up north (they want a polar orbit so that they can get sun all of the time). The reason why it was launched from a submarine was because converted Russian ICBMs are cheap - Russia wants to get rid of them.
-- The War of 1812... the good 'ol days when the federal government actually tried to save New Orleans.
Update from the Plantery Society
by
Rei
·
· Score: 5, Informative
The Planetary Society as issued the following statement on the fate of Cosmos 1, the first Solar Sail Spacecraft:
In the past twenty-four hours, the Russian space agency (RKA) has made a tentative conclusion that the Volna rocket carrying Cosmos 1 failed during the firing of the first stage. This would mean that Cosmos 1 is lost.
While it is likely that this conclusion is correct, there are some inconsistent indications from information received from other sources. The Cosmos 1 team observed what appear to be signals, that looks like they are from the spacecraft when it was over the first three ground stations and some Doppler data over one of these stations. This might indicate that Cosmos 1 made it into orbit, but probably a lower one than intended. The project team now considers this to be a very small probability. But because there is a slim chance that it might be so, efforts to contact and track the spacecraft continue. We are working with US Strategic Command to provide additional information in a day or so.
If the spacecraft made it to orbit, its autonomous program might be working, and after 4 days the sails could automatically deploy. While the chances of this are very, very small, we still encourage optical observers to see if the sail can be seen after that time.
We await further developments and information coming out of Russia, STRATCOM, and the tracking stations.
-- The War of 1812... the good 'ol days when the federal government actually tried to save New Orleans.
Re:Update from the Plantery Society
by
Rei
·
· Score: 2, Informative
maccam94 was correct. There is no cutoff point to the atmosphere. The lower it orbits, the more drag it will encounter. That's why LEO satellites must continually use propellant to boost their orbit; this is called stationkeeping (different types of stationkeeping apply to GEO satellites which are so far out that atmospheric drag is mostly a non-issue)
How much drag will it enounter? It depends, not only on how low it is, but how elliptical the orbit is. The orbit should still be polar, however, and the spacecraft will be mostly orienting its sails to the sun, so hopefully it won't have too extreme drag if it's up there. I suppose it depends on how much of an angle to the sun they're at. Total hypersonic drag is mostly proportional to cross-sectional area.
-- The War of 1812... the good 'ol days when the federal government actually tried to save New Orleans.
Re:Update from the Plantery Society
by
maccam94
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Well, many comments say that it is in a very low orbit. I'm not sure of the details on how high it goes, but the stage one rocket failed after just over a minute, so it probably didn't get very high, am I right? So there is still going to be some atmosphere around. Then, during the automatic opening of the sails, they will probably be torn to shreds, because aren't they really really thin? This could knock it out of its orbit (at least alter it) as they tear from the supports. I just hope it doesn't land on my house:-P
Failure seems to be confirmed now.
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1, Informative
The Planetary Society as issued the following statement on the fate of Cosmos 1, the first Solar Sail Spacecraft:
In the past twenty-four hours, the Russian space agency (RKA) has made a tentative conclusion that the Volna rocket carrying Cosmos 1 failed during the firing of the first stage. This would mean that Cosmos 1 is lost.
While it is likely that this conclusion is correct, there are some inconsistent indications from information received from other sources. The Cosmos 1 team observed what appear to be signals, that looks like they are from the spacecraft when it was over the first three ground stations and some Doppler data over one of these stations. This might indicate that Cosmos 1 made it into orbit, but probably a lower one than intended. The project team now considers this to be a very small probability. But because there is a slim chance that it might be so, efforts to contact and track the spacecraft continue. We are working with US Strategic Command to provide additional information in a day or so.
If the spacecraft made it to orbit, its autonomous program might be working, and after 4 days the sails could automatically deploy. While the chances of this are very, very small, we still encourage optical observers to see if the sail can be seen after that time.
We await further developments and information coming out of Russia, STRATCOM, and the tracking stations.
Re:Donating $$$ for the next Solar Sails attempt
by
p3d0
·
· Score: 2, Informative
-- Patrick Doyle I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
Re:Cold War?
by
Cat_Byte
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Well considering it was a known launch of a scientific vehicle I'm sure we didn't have to waste tax payer $$ to track the thing with satellites. 2nd of all, if the thing opens up to about 30 meters (I seem to recall that being the size of the sails), it is probably very small while still packed. Once stage 1 failed I'm sure nobody thought it would be making it to orbit so any tracking would be on the rocket itself I would think. But thats just me talking.
You were probably joking but you should look into what happened to the funding for things like NORAD. It is actually quite interesting to see posted line by line spending = half of the budget during some years yet nobody questions it. MIB $$?;)
A bottom-up line-item aggregation in the Meteorology program area successfully reproduces with negligible divergence the DoD estimates from 1980 through 1986, and from 1991 through 1994. However, there is a gross discrepancy from 1987 through 1990, during which the DoD estimate is nearly twice the total that can be derived through line-item aggregation. There is no apparent explanation for this, as a close examination of budget documents reveals no meteorology or oceanography related programs not included in the line-item estimates.
Many more interesting facts on that page and some others on a quick google search of '+NAFTA +funding'
-- Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
Re:In Soviet Russia, they don't give up
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1, Informative
Not quite.
While the technology DID exist, in many ways it does not exist now. Even if we dusted off the origial drawings and specs, they were deigned to work with materials and components that were available at the time. Many of those parts no longer exist, and the indutry to produce them has moved on. So any such massive rockets would have to be redesigned using modern components, by a new generation of engeineers. They could learn from the older ones, but it would still be non-trivial.
Re:Solid-fuel rocket not likely to "shut down"
by
n54
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Seems the Volna is a liquid-fueled rocket (I didn't know but wanted to find out).
"Model: R-29K. IOC: 1978. Country: Russia. Other Designations: RSM-50. Department of Defence Designation [my edit: and NATO designation]: SS-N-18 Mod 2. ASCC Reporting Name: Stingray. Article Number: 4K75K. Manufacturer's Designation: R-29K. Popular Name: Volna. Launch System: D-9. Complex: 4K75K.
First flight 1977.
Manufacturer: Makayev. Total Mass: 34,388 kg. Core Diameter: 1.80 m. Total Length: 14.40 m. Span: 1.80 m. Standard warhead mass: 820 kg. Maximum range: 7,980 km. Number Standard Warheads: 1. Standard warhead yield: 450 KT. Standard warhead CEP: 1 km. Boost Propulsion: Storable liquid rocket. Cruise Propulsion: Storable liquid rocket. Guidance: Inertial."
-- this comment is provided "as is" and without any express or implied legibility or congruity [...]
CNN now reporting that something went wrong:However, weak signals received by tracking stations in the Pacific Ocean, Russia and the Czech Republic seemed to show it had made it into orbit... "The good news is we have reason to believe it's alive and in orbit," said Murray, a former director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "The bad news is we don't know where it is."
"We have no evidence that anything is wrong with the spacecraft at all," said Bruce Betts, the Planetary Society's director of projects, late on Tuesday.
Slashdot Mirror
Just read this on the Register. Seems they are still receiving faint signals...
Except this is paid for by the Planetary Society, so who knows if they'll build another one. I suspect they will, but it's not because Russians are involved.
This post was generated by a Cadre of Uber Monkeys for Monkey-Man2000 (603495).
No, that's a legit contradiction. If you go to the Planetary Society's website, you'll find that they are still hunting and there are clear signs that something is screwed up, but the spacecraft may have made it to orbit:
h tml
http://planetary.org/solarsailblog
http://www.planetary.org/solarsail/latest_update.
I'm kind of suprised that the Russians are so quick to call "fail" on this, given the conflicting data, but they had a bad karma space day yesterday, what with their other launch of a military payload failing as well.
Neurowiz
Russian rocket failure rates are about on par with US rocket failure rates; the only thing that I can think of offhand that they've had serious reliability problems with are their mars probes.
:)
The problem is that this wasn't designed to be an orbital vehicle - the Volna is an ICBM, i.e., designed for lofting moderately heavy suborbital payloads. Russia wants a use for the ICBMs that they can't afford to maintain, and is trying to convert them for launching orbital payloads. I.e., Cosmos 1 and its predecessor are being launched on untested payload delivery systems (and hence the low price).
Cosmos 1 was funded by the insurance money from the previous failure, so don't think that this is the end.
The War of 1812... the good 'ol days when the federal government actually tried to save New Orleans.
Why the hell does Slashdot base their "news" on Fox rather than going to the source itself?
Here's the latest (as of this moment) weblog entry from the Planetary Society itself as written by Emily Lakdawalla:
"Jun 22, 2005 | 07:49 PDT | 14:49 UTC The morning after
I showed up here at POP at about 7 am local time. I'm the only one here in the building at the moment. It was a very late night after a very long day yesterday, and we all knew that if anything there would be more people asking questions today; we needed the rest.
Over our night and their day there has been some information coming out of Russia. To recap where we stand: yesterday the launch appeared to happen roughly on time. The Navy reported first stage firing. Then the signal of the spacecraft was detected over the temporary ground station at Petropavlovsk. But it wasn't detected over Majuro, which had us concerned. And then U. S. Strategic Command reported that they did not see our spacecraft in the sky. Later in the afternoon, we heard back from our man in Majuro that he thought actually he may have detected a weak signal. And then we heard the same from Panska Ves via Lou. That all seemed to add up to a consistent story that while there may have been a problem on board, our spacecraft likely was in orbit.
Since then, there has been a new report circulating from Russia:
ITAR-TASS is now quoting officials of the Russian Navy and the Makeyev design bureau as saying that the Volna first stage unexpectedly shut down 83 seconds after lift-off, adding that unlike the standard Volna SLBM the "space version" does not have an automatic destruct system for such an eventuality.
About this, Lou made a statement last night:
Project Director Louis Friedman cautioned that some data point to a launch vehicle misfiring, one that would prevent the spacecraft from achieving orbit. He said, "That the weak signals were recorded at the expected times of spacecraft passes over the ground stations is encouraging, but in no way are they conclusive enough for us to be sure that they came from Cosmos 1 working in orbit." The Russian space agency indicated that the Volna rocket may have had a problem during its first or second stage firing. "This," Friedman noted, "would almost certainly have prevented the spacecraft from reaching the correct orbit."
What this means is that we are still dealing with a very wide range of possibilities for what could have happened yesterday, made even wider by the fact that it kind of sounds like some of the information that we have is contradictory. If the launch vehicle failed, how did we detect signals at Majuro and Panska Ves? On the other side, if the launch vehicle had a problem but still managed to put the spacecraft into some orbit, why didn't Strat Comm see it last night? We don't know what to make of it. We hope to get more information from Lou in an hour or two. Stand by for that."
this comment is provided "as is" and without any express or implied legibility or congruity [...]
Space technology is behind because of wars? I think you're confused. The rockets we see see today are the direct descendants of rockets like the V2. The moon landings were a direct result of competition between the US and the USSR during the cold war - that's why they're no longer happening. The space race is beginning to warm up again because countries like China are threating American military superiority in space.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
http://planetary.org/solarsailblog/index_05.html http://planetary.org/solarsail/latest_update.html
As far as space launches go, this was an incredibly inexpensive one. However, that does not say that it was cheap for the Sagan folks. Hopefully, they will bounce back and get their bird up into space sooner rather than later.
To those who criticize NASA, which is hamstrung by its own bureaucracy and an overall lack of fncding, one would be remiss to fail to point out that they have indeed placed two probes on Mars recently, vehicles that have vastly exceeded their life-expectancies and remain useful and operational.
That also extends to the Space Shuttle. Those who constantly criticize it are either ignoring or are ignorant of its history: the Shuttle was a compromised design due to politics rather than technology, and NASA has been "stuck" with a vehicle it would rather not have initially had. On that point, the current design of the shuttle was certainly not what NASA wanted. As the mnost complex mechanical system on the planet, it is bound for failure, and it will not surprise me when all of them are lost in flight accidents.
That's why SpaceShipOne excited me so much on a personal level. It was a successful project, done relatively inexpensively and proved that private funding could succeed in putting a bird up in to technical space. By itself, SS1 is hardly a blip in space history, but it will serve as impetus to what comes next. Fresh eyes coming up with new solutions is a great idea.
The bottom line is this: Today, space flight is expensive, at least if you want a high probability of success. While it is tragic that the Solar Sail probe was lost, it does serve as yet another reminder that "on the cheap" programs prove that you get what you pay for. If you want to go to space, bring copious amounts of cash. It may seem wasteful in the midst of success, but in the midst of failures such as this, the costs suddenly become reasonable.
This particular venture was privately financed, so it essentially amounts to a bunch of people getting together and flying a really expensive kite. So now is a time we can skip the "space is waste" crap.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
Nope - the craft is going into a polar orbit, so it's actually slightly better to launch up north (they want a polar orbit so that they can get sun all of the time). The reason why it was launched from a submarine was because converted Russian ICBMs are cheap - Russia wants to get rid of them.
The War of 1812... the good 'ol days when the federal government actually tried to save New Orleans.
The Planetary Society has the following to say:
10:30 am PDT, June 22 (17:30 UTC)
The Planetary Society as issued the following statement on the fate of Cosmos 1, the first Solar Sail Spacecraft:
In the past twenty-four hours, the Russian space agency (RKA) has made a tentative conclusion that the Volna rocket carrying Cosmos 1 failed during the firing of the first stage. This would mean that Cosmos 1 is lost.
While it is likely that this conclusion is correct, there are some inconsistent indications from information received from other sources. The Cosmos 1 team observed what appear to be signals, that looks like they are from the spacecraft when it was over the first three ground stations and some Doppler data over one of these stations. This might indicate that Cosmos 1 made it into orbit, but probably a lower one than intended. The project team now considers this to be a very small probability. But because there is a slim chance that it might be so, efforts to contact and track the spacecraft continue. We are working with US Strategic Command to provide additional information in a day or so.
If the spacecraft made it to orbit, its autonomous program might be working, and after 4 days the sails could automatically deploy. While the chances of this are very, very small, we still encourage optical observers to see if the sail can be seen after that time.
We await further developments and information coming out of Russia, STRATCOM, and the tracking stations.
The War of 1812... the good 'ol days when the federal government actually tried to save New Orleans.
http://planetarysociety.org/solarsail/latest_updat e.html
10:30 am PDT, June 22 (17:30 UTC)
The Planetary Society as issued the following statement on the fate of Cosmos 1, the first Solar Sail Spacecraft:
In the past twenty-four hours, the Russian space agency (RKA) has made a tentative conclusion that the Volna rocket carrying Cosmos 1 failed during the firing of the first stage. This would mean that Cosmos 1 is lost.
While it is likely that this conclusion is correct, there are some inconsistent indications from information received from other sources. The Cosmos 1 team observed what appear to be signals, that looks like they are from the spacecraft when it was over the first three ground stations and some Doppler data over one of these stations. This might indicate that Cosmos 1 made it into orbit, but probably a lower one than intended. The project team now considers this to be a very small probability. But because there is a slim chance that it might be so, efforts to contact and track the spacecraft continue. We are working with US Strategic Command to provide additional information in a day or so.
If the spacecraft made it to orbit, its autonomous program might be working, and after 4 days the sails could automatically deploy. While the chances of this are very, very small, we still encourage optical observers to see if the sail can be seen after that time.
We await further developments and information coming out of Russia, STRATCOM, and the tracking stations.
Ok, then let's slashdot this link.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
If you want to see them try again, donate here.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
You were probably joking but you should look into what happened to the funding for things like NORAD. It is actually quite interesting to see posted line by line spending = half of the budget during some years yet nobody questions it. MIB $$?
From here
A bottom-up line-item aggregation in the Meteorology program area successfully reproduces with negligible divergence the DoD estimates from 1980 through 1986, and from 1991 through 1994. However, there is a gross discrepancy from 1987 through 1990, during which the DoD estimate is nearly twice the total that can be derived through line-item aggregation. There is no apparent explanation for this, as a close examination of budget documents reveals no meteorology or oceanography related programs not included in the line-item estimates.
Many more interesting facts on that page and some others on a quick google search of '+NAFTA +funding'
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
Not quite.
While the technology DID exist, in many ways it does not exist now. Even if we dusted off the origial drawings and specs, they were deigned to work with materials and components that were available at the time. Many of those parts no longer exist, and the indutry to produce them has moved on. So any such massive rockets would have to be redesigned using modern components, by a new generation of engeineers. They could learn from the older ones, but it would still be non-trivial.
Seems the Volna is a liquid-fueled rocket (I didn't know but wanted to find out).
More detailed information on it from http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/r29.htm
"Model: R-29K. IOC: 1978. Country: Russia. Other Designations: RSM-50. Department of Defence Designation [my edit: and NATO designation]: SS-N-18 Mod 2. ASCC Reporting Name: Stingray. Article Number: 4K75K. Manufacturer's Designation: R-29K. Popular Name: Volna. Launch System: D-9. Complex: 4K75K.
First flight 1977.
Manufacturer: Makayev. Total Mass: 34,388 kg. Core Diameter: 1.80 m. Total Length: 14.40 m. Span: 1.80 m. Standard warhead mass: 820 kg. Maximum range: 7,980 km. Number Standard Warheads: 1. Standard warhead yield: 450 KT. Standard warhead CEP: 1 km. Boost Propulsion: Storable liquid rocket. Cruise Propulsion: Storable liquid rocket. Guidance: Inertial."
this comment is provided "as is" and without any express or implied legibility or congruity [...]
CNN now reporting that something went wrong:However, weak signals received by tracking stations in the Pacific Ocean, Russia and the Czech Republic seemed to show it had made it into orbit... "The good news is we have reason to believe it's alive and in orbit," said Murray, a former director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "The bad news is we don't know where it is."
"We have no evidence that anything is wrong with the spacecraft at all," said Bruce Betts, the Planetary Society's director of projects, late on Tuesday.
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.