Cosmos-1, the solar sail mission Options

[remcook]

for updates:

http://planetary.org/solarsailblog/index.html

main page:

http://www.planetary.org/solarsail/

[remcook]

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0506/21solarsail/

The world's first foray into a new generation of space propulsion is riding on the wings of the Russian Navy and a converted ballistic missile that now stands ready for the command to shoot into orbit from an underwater submarine.

[djellison]

1946Z is the expected launch time - but the Planetary Soc site is totally down, and I'm flicking between Sky News, BBC News 24, CNN, Fox, ITV news, Euronews - not not a sausage so far

Doug

[djellison]

Ahh

"Liftoff the rocket won’t be immediately confirmed. The launch is being conducted by the Russian Navy. They will contact Lavochkin Association near Moscow who will then relay the information to The Planetary Society."

Old School Russia alive and well

Doug

[dilo]

Jun 21, 2005 | 12:48 PDT | 19:48 UTC
Launch plus 0 hours 2 min

Normal first stage separation! WE'RE OFF!

Jun 21, 2005 | 12:46 PDT | 19:46 UTC
Launch plus 0 hours 0 min

"This is Pasadena, we have nominal launch, unverified."

[dilo]

From CNN:
Solar spacecraft blasts off
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/TECH/space/06/...reut/index.html

...However Planetary Society reports:

Jun 21, 2005 | 13:11 PDT | 20:11 UTC
Launch plus 0 hours 25 min

Report from Kamchatka is that they did not detect the spacecraft

This isn't necessarily unexpected. Petropavlovsk was a marginal contact, and it would have been happening while the spacecraft was spinning rapidly and thrusting, not an easy signal to deal with.

We are holding our breaths for the Majuro contact.

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

damn you beat me to it

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

Jun 21, 2005 | 13:15 PDT | 20:15 UTC
Launch plus 0 hours 31 min

Majuro does not see signal yet

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

Jun 21, 2005 | 13:21 PDT | 20:21 UTC
Launch plus 0 hours 35 min

Still nothing at Majuro

.....this is looking disappointing

[dilo]

Still nothing at Majuro
.....this is looking disappointing 

Yes... However now it seems they received some signal and then lost it due to motor injection...

[djellison]

Guess it might have safed during launch or something

Who knows.

I cant wait to try and spot it in the sky with my new digi cam

Doug

[helvick]

From the Cosmos-1 Blog:

Jun 21, 2005 | 13:42 PDT | 20:42 UTC
Launch plus 0 hours 56 min

More info from Kamchatka

Lou reports that the Doppler data from Kamchatka indicates that duration of the motor firing was approximately just at that which was programmed. But no conclusion yet, because we have no direct telemetry signal from spacecraft.

So no panic stations yet.

[volcanopele]

I suspect Doug maybe right about it safing after launch. Not perfect, but not exactly unusual.

[dilo]

From last update, "there's no communication at all wth the spacecraft" and "A contingency plan for this is now being put into effect".
Not very encouraging to me...

[dilo]

A press conference now, information should be forthcoming.
They said: "There is some telemetry data from the launch phase that doesn't appear quite right", but is not clear what... "On the other hand we do not have direct evidence for failure."