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."

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.

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.

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!

Swords into Plowshares

[NardofDoom]

"...atop a converted ICBM..."

Just like some other craft we happen to know [startrek.com].

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:Bummer indeed

[QuantumG]

So umm, why can't all space research be paid for this way? Or at least, why don't US citizens have the option to pay some percentage of their tax to NASA when they file their tax returns?

Re:Interstellar

[Andrew-Unit]

If you want a sail driven by solar wind/protons, you've got the Mini-Magnetospheric Plasma Propulsion idea, M2P2 [nasa.gov].

From the link:

M2P2 would generate a magnetic field and then inject plasma (ionized gas) that would drag the magnetic field lines out and form a plasma bubble 30 to 60 km (18-36 mi) in diameter.

And, the plasma bubble is very light... lighter than a solar sail.

Re:Interstellar

[Mycroft_VIII]

Solar sails use photon pressure, aka light. Not having rtfm I suppose they could have intended to use the solar wind as well with this one, but light is what you'd use for intersteller distances.
On idea that's been kicked around is to put a huge laser on the moon and shine it at a retreating solar sail to give it an extra push to bring it up to higher speeds faster. This has the advantage beign able to use a huge facility without taking it along. Of course you'd have to reverse the sail much sooner and spend more time slowing down, unless of course there is a civilisation at the destination to build and shine an apropriate laser at you.

Mycroft