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  • Sailing to the Stars

    Space ship's solar sails set out for far shores of a new world
    From Jeremy Page in Moscow

    THE world’s first solar sail is due to be launched tomorrow from a Russian nuclear submarine in the Barents Sea, heralding a new era of space travel.
    Cosmos 1 will be launched on a converted intercontinental ballistic missile and, once in orbit, will unfurl eight ultra-thin triangular sails, each about 14 metres (45ft) long, in a windmill formation.

    The private US-Russian consortium that developed the craft said that photons, or light particles, bouncing off the reflective sails will propel it.

    If successful, the mission will be as significant a milestone for space exploration as the invention of the fabric sail was for travel on Earth.

    Solar sails could replace rockets on some spacecraft within a decade and, with a boost from a satellite-based laser, reach Pluto within two years and Alpha Centauri, the closest star to Earth, within 1,000.

    Louis Friedman, the executive director of the Planetary Society, a private group which spearheaded the project, said: “The thing about solar sailing is that you don’t need to carry fuel. The real hope is that it becomes a way to travel between planets. And this is the only technology that leads in the long range to interstellar flight.”

    The project also highlights the growing role played by the private sector in space exploration, once the exclusive preserve of government agencies.

    Dr Friedman was in charge of developing solar sails for Nasa in the 1970s, and worked on a project to use the technology to intercept Halley’s Comet. But it was shelved because it was too expensive and deemed ahead of its time.

    “Government agencies can afford it, but they get too ambitious, so projects become more expensive,” he said. “Then no one wants to take the risk.”

    Dr Friedman left the agency and teamed up with Carl Sagan, a Nasa conslutant and popular astronomer, in 1979 to found the Planetary Society, the world’s largest non-profit, non-governmental space advocacy group.

    The $4 million (£2.2 million) Cosmos 1 project was funded by Cosmos Studios, which was founded by Ann Druyan, Dr Sagan’s widow, and produces science-based films and DVDs. The spacecraft was built under contract by Russia’s Lavochkin Association and Space Re- search Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

    Data from the mission will be shared internationally, and if it succeeds, Nasa, the European Space Agency and others are expected to launch cosmic sails within a decade.

    Solar sailing has been envisioned since the early 20th Century, but became possible only in the past ten years thanks to the development of super-lightweight materials.

    Russian scientists were the first to suggest the idea. Fridrickh Arturovich Tsander, an engineer, wrote in 1924: “For flight in interplanetary space I am working on the idea of flying, using tremendous mirrors of very thin sheets, capable of achieving favourable results.”

    Arthur C. Clarke, the science fiction writer, popularised the concept in his 1972 collection of short stories, The Wind From The Sun.

    The technology has had its naysayers — notably Thomas Gold, the late British scientist who was Dr Friedman’s teacher at Cornell University. He argued that solar sails would not work because they would reflect all the light that hit them without absorbing any heat.

    But Dr Friedman said that this argument was based on 19th-century theories of thermodynamics. “This is a test not of physics, but of engineering,” he said.

    The spacecraft has been fitted into the nose of the Volna rocket and loaded on to the Delta III submarine, which is due to leave the northern port of Severmorsk, near Murmansk, today.

    About 20 minutes after the three-stage Volna is fired from the submarine, Cosmos 1 should enter orbit at a distance of 512 miles. Its sails will be deployed 37 minutes later and, if they work correctly, they should be visible to the naked eye from the ground.

    Cosmos 1 will then accelerate to 195mph in a day. As it gathers speed, it will move into a higher orbit.

    It would reach 10,000mph in 100 days, according to its designers, but the sails are a mere 0.005mm thick and will quickly degrade, so it is likely to fall back to Earth as a fireball after a month.

    That notwithstanding, the spacecraft will carry a CD with messages from its creators, including Ms Druyan, who is the head of Cosmos Studios.

    Her message says: “Our ancestors devised a means to ride the winds across the high seas. They began the process of turning our species into an intercommunicating organism.

    “The names of these ancient explorers are lost to us. Today we honour their courage and genius with this first flight of Cosmos 1. We seek to learn how to ride the light of our star across the immense ocean of space to the distant shores of other worlds.”
    When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow. - Anais Nin

  • #2
    Awesome. Yay for such positive scientific advancements!

    Comment


    • #3
      yes very cool, I often think I was born 100 years too early...
      In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.

      Leibniz

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by gaelic coconut
        Awesome. Yay for such positive scientific advancements!
        Just look at the price of this thing. $4 m. Relatively peanusts!
        When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow. - Anais Nin

        Comment


        • #5
          It was refreshing to behold shared interest in the Society's solar sail. I've been a member of the Planetary Society for years and encourage all to join, the fee is nominal, one receives a bimonthly publication, and one helps promote the exploration of the next horizon. - The cosmic ocean awaits... To sail on an ocean of light... The Planetary Society's late (great) Carl Sagan would surely smile this day.

          - And isn't it interesting how this sail has been launched from a military (Russian) submarine, a mechanism of war (or peace-keeping) being used (purchased) for a purely scientific endeavor. What the passage of time does... Change truly is the only constant in this universe of ours.

          To the stars and beyond.


          - Morbius
          Morbius
          Altair-IV

          Comment


          • #6
            "War is the norm... Peace is what needs to be waged."
            E. Morbius
            Last edited by Morbius; 22 Jun 05,, 00:37.
            Morbius
            Altair-IV

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            • #7
              The really strange part of this mission is that its launched from a converted ICBM from a Russian nuclear sub. Wierd.

              If this thing works, you should be able to easily see the satellite with the naked eye once the sail deploys.

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by barrowaj
                The really strange part of this mission is that its launched from a converted ICBM from a Russian nuclear sub. Wierd.

                If this thing works, you should be able to easily see the satellite with the naked eye once the sail deploys.
                Not really strange. We use the Delta boosters to launch all sorts of stuff that doesn't go boom. But the potential (SSBN launches) is very promising nonetheless.

                -dale

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                • #9
                  can anybody tell me when it actually deploys?
                  In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.

                  Leibniz

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by parihaka
                    can anybody tell me when it actually deploys?

                    Solar sail probe's fate unknown

                    Story from BBC NEWS:
                    http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/h...re/4110912.stm

                    Published: 2005/06/22 08:34:25 GMT
                    http://planetary.org/solarsail/
                    When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow. - Anais Nin

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by dalem
                      Not really strange. We use the Delta boosters to launch all sorts of stuff that doesn't go boom. But the potential (SSBN launches) is very promising nonetheless.

                      -dale
                      I mean the strange part about it is not that its flying on an ICBM design, but that it was actually launched from a submarine. Instead of the rocket design being the same as an ICBM, I got the impression that this was literally an ICBM that had its warhead taken off and satellite installed, then put back in the submarine and launched at sea.

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                      • #12
                        I think this is the 5th time Russia has launched (or attempted to launch) from a sub, they successfully put two German satellites in orbit in 1998 from a sub, there were two previous failures of a satellite similar to this solar sail, one in 1999 and another in 2001, and they tested a balloon reentry vehicle from a sub launch in 2002.

                        It's pretty certain that this launch didn't work, the booster failed 83 seconds into the flight. The chances of the satellite successfully separating from the launch vehicle are extremely low.
                        "We will go through our federal budget – page by page, line by line – eliminating those programs we don’t need, and insisting that those we do operate in a sensible cost-effective way." -President Barack Obama 11/25/2008

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                        • #13
                          Solar sail go ka-boom.

                          1st Stage failure. Whoops...

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Another textbook Russian sub launch...
                            "We will go through our federal budget – page by page, line by line – eliminating those programs we don’t need, and insisting that those we do operate in a sensible cost-effective way." -President Barack Obama 11/25/2008

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                            • #15
                              Originally posted by highsea
                              Another textbook Russian sub launch...
                              Yeah, it sucks this thing failed. It would have been a cool proof of concept.

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