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[Rocketman]

I was hoping to get to see this, but things did not work out. I will admit I was a bit suspicious of the launch vehicle. They should have launched it from a normal ground rocket, and not some old russian ICBM from a submarine.

Article:

space.com/missionlaunches/ap_solarsail_fail_050622.html

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

This story is conflicting...

Here it states it was lost:

But the Volna booster rocket failed 83 seconds after its launch from a Russian nuclear submarine in the northern Barents Sea just before midnight Tuesday in Moscow, the Russian space agency said.

Its spokesman, Vyacheslav Davidenko, said that "the booster's failure means that the solar sail vehicle was lost." The Russian Defense Ministry launched a search for debris from the booster and the vehicle, he said.

But here it states it is very much in orbit:

The signals were picked up late Tuesday after an all-day search for the spacecraft, which had suddenly stopped communicating after its launch, they said.

"It's good news because we are in orbit—very likely in orbit," Bruce Murray, a co-founder of The Planetary Society, which organized the mission, said before the Russian space agency's announcement.

Yes...they should have lauched it from a dependable and reliable launch vehicle.

This is too bad...

[Maddad]

Yeah, CNN reported that it crashed in the Barents Sea a few minutes after takeoff. MSN's got the story too, although they're no longer showing the link. Google for it and you'll find it.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

What a great dissapointment and let down for this mission. I was looking so much toward it, and share my saddness along with the Deep Impact team.

We will now have to wait for the NASA Solar Sail to launch.

Don't let this get you too down Planetary Society.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Solar Sail Latest Updates
June 21-22, 2005

From The Planetary Societies weblog...

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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.

More here: www.planetary.org/solarsail/latest_update.html

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This is just quite disheartening...

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Slim Hope Seen for Solar Sail Spacecraft

Though their history-making endeavor stalled, organizers of a bold attempt to fly the world's first solar sail spacecraft say they have no regrets and that future efforts will benefit from what they learned.

The Planetary Society, the Pasadena-based group that orchestrated the $4 million launch of Cosmos 1, all but conceded Wednesday that the spacecraft's launch ended in failure.

Russia's space agency said with ``some definitiveness'' that Cosmos 1's booster rocket failed 83 seconds after its launch from a Russian nuclear submarine in the Barents Sea on Tuesday. Ground tracking stations continued to scan the heavens.

"We all rate it as a 1 percent probability of something like that, but stranger things have happened," said project director Louis D. Friedman, a veteran of military and civilian space programs including NASA's Mariner, Voyager and Magellan projects.

Yet, there may be hope for Cosmos 1.

Tracking stations on Russia's Kamchatka peninsula, in the South Pacific and in the Czech Republic recorded signals that seemed to be transmissions from the craft, Planetary Society officials said, leaving the possibility that the vehicle made it part way around the globe or actually was in orbit, waiting to be found.

More here: www.space.com/missionlaunches/ap_cosmos1_update_050623.html

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Could it be that the Cosmos craft is transmitting it's signal from under hundreds of feet of water? Hmmm.....

[Maddad]

This thing's supposed to be as bright as the full moon when its solar sails unfurl. We'd have seen that by now for certain.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Cosmos 1 Backers Acknowledge Solar Craft Is Likely Lost

Moscow (AFP) Jun 23, 2005
The Planetary Society, the main backers of the revolutionary solar-powered Cosmos 1, acknowledged Thursday that the space craft had likely been destroyed soon after its launch.

"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," the group said in a statement Thursday.

However there were "some inconsistent indications . . . from other sources" suggesting that Cosmos 1 may have survived and is in a lower orbit than one intended.

Even though the project team "considers this to be a very small probability . . . efforts to contact and track the spacecraft" will continue, it said.

More here: www.spacedaily.com/news/solarsails-05j.html

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What luck, eh?...

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Solar Sail spacecraft fails to separate from booster

From the TASS News agency...

MOSCOW, June 24 (Itar-Tass) - The Solar Sail has not separated from the booster, a source at the Lavochkin scientific and production centre, where the unique spacecraft was made, told Itar-Tass on Friday.

The analysis of the received telemetric information shows that the Volna rocket stopped its flight 160 seconds after the flight beginning, and consequently, the Solar Sail did not separate from it and did not come to the planned orbit, spokeswoman for the centre Lidia Avdeyeva told Itar-Tass.

The Volna rocket was launched from the Barents Sea on June 21 and was to carry the Russian-U.S. experimental satellite Cosmos-1 with "the solar sail" into the space.

The spacecraft weighing 100 kilogrammes was made to order for the U.S. Planetary Society. It was planned to put the craft into a circular 800-km-altitude orbit.

Specialists planned to prove that it was possible to use the solar light pressure to operate a spacecraft.

The first attempt to send a solar sail to the space was made in July 2001, but it failed because the craft did not separate from the booster either and was destroyed in the dense atmosphere layers.
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Quite a shame.