[meteorite-list] SOLAR SAIL UPDATE, or is it down?

From: Sterling K. Webb <kelly_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed Jun 22 13:44:19 2005
Message-ID: <42B9A350.99FEFD07_at_bhil.com>

Hi,

    The uncertainty deepens.

    The Russians have been giving press conferences in which they said the
Volna booster shut off after 83 seconds (out of a 110 second burn), and the
Cosmos 1 Solar Sail spacecraft is lost, down, re-entered, burned up, whatever.

    This morning, the Planetary Society, whose spacecraft it was, is reported
to have said that "weak" signals from the craft have been received in eastern
Russia, the South Pacific, and the Czech Republic. The actual telemetry has
been re-analyzed (apparently) and seems to be verified.

    There are no reports of re-entered spacecraft. The US Strategic Command,
which has the capability of actually seeing objects in orbit (like Ed White's
lost thermal glove!), has not been able to find any sign of it, but you have
to know exactly where to look. It's a really big sky.

    The Planetary Society's weblog for Cosmos 1 Solar Sail
<http://planetary.org/solarsailblog/index_05.html>
    says "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."

    Continued uncertainty is not a good sign, of course. It's possible some
kind of orbit was achieved, but a horribly wrong one instead of the planned
orbit.

    For those unfamiliar with the Solar Sail craft, it was to have deployed
eight triangular reflective "sails", each 50 feet long, producing a gigantic
"sunflower" 100 feet across. With each sail capable of being oriented
independently, it was to have used the pressure of sunlight just as the sail
of a boat uses the wind, to accelerate and maneuver.

    A mirror bright object 100 feet across, located in Earth orbit, would have
been highly visible and a truly spectacular slight! Personally, I was hoping
that, once its orbital elements were known, someone would calculate times and
places where you would be precisely in line with the direct solar reflection,
producing a super bright flash, like an Iridium flare, only more so!

    Not too long after the Iridium satellites started going up, when I saw my
first Iridium flare suddenly brighten up (but didn't know that's what it was),
well, for the first minute or so I thought God had let me live long enough to
see a naked-eye supernova (but not too close, Lord; the cheap seats way in the
back are fine, really). Then, it faded and shortly disappeared. Not a
supernova. But, it was a nice minute.

    Here's the Planetary Society's page for the latest updates:
<http://www.planetary.org/solarsail/latest_update.html>
    They haven't posted anything since about midnight last night.


Sterling K. Webb
-------------------------------------------------
"Sterling K. Webb" wrote:

> Hi,
>
> 12 minutes ago (at the moment I started to type this), the Times
> (London, that is) reported the apparent failure of the Russian booster to
> put the Cosmos 1 Solar Sail spacecraft into orbit.
> <http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1664374,00.html>
> I quote: "The launch of Cosmos 1 was part of a joint Russian-American
> attempt at the first controlled flight using a solar sail. An official in
> Russia?s Northern Fleet told the RIA-Novosti news agency that the engine
> had failed 83 seconds after the launch from a submerged Russian
> submarine."
> The Russians are searching for the re-entered remains which, if orbit
> was not achieved, should be down somewhere by now.
> The concept was a project of the late Carl Sagan, and was largely
> financed by his widow and The Planetary Society, which he co-founded. Of
> course, since I was in a disappointed mood already, I was particularly
> annoyed by the fact that all the major US news sources (which I've popping
> for updates) referred to Carl Sagan as "the late science fiction writer"!
> Only the CBC (Canada) correctly identified him as the late "famous
> astronomer." Sort of a sad commentary all on its own.
>
> Sterling K. Webb
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> "Sterling K. Webb" wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > Today's launch of the Solar Sail spacecraft aboard a Cosmos 1 /
> > Volna rocket from a Russian submarine for the operators (The Planetary
> > Society) appeared to go well, but telemetry is not established and
> > orbital confirmation has yet to me made. Trouble in paradise.
> > It seems like there's going to a long nervous wait ahead. If
> > successful and if the Sail deploys, the Solar Sail will be easily
> > visible as a bright speck in the sky.
> > Updates at:
> > <http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/050621_cosmos1_launch.html>
> >
> > Sterling K. Webb
> >
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Received on Wed 22 Jun 2005 01:43:44 PM PDT