Cosmos-1, the solar sail mission Options

[edstrick]

Was the kick-stage a solid motor?.... they have been known to rupture or detonate during the burn.
<eep!>
cross fingers and pray to the launch-gods.

[buddy1475]

We shuld just be happy that they didnt fire the wrong ICBM.

[deglr6328]

Telemetry received from Kamchatka! They suspect its in an improper orbit though.

[dilo]

We shuld just be happy that they didnt fire the wrong ICBM.

...
From last blog:"Where could we be? Odds are, if it was a problem with the launch vehicle, [...] our orbit is more likely elliptical than circular, and also lower, and therefore faster than we expect. Without knowing where the spacecraft is, it becomes harder and harder to find as we go out from the launch date. Strategic Command has not seen the spacecraft -- we don't know why."
The american space surveillance system should be able to track it... however, if orbit is lower than expected, there isn't much hope to save the mission (fast orbit decay, especially after sail deploy)...

[edstrick]

If the periapsis is below some fairly well determined altitude, even if the orbit is stable, the spacecraft will have too much aerodynamic drag to successfully deploy the sails, I suspect.

Does the spacecraft have any propulsion at all, even by using up a good fraction of the attitude control <I presume it has that> propellant?

If periapsis is way too low, the spacecraft could do 1 or 2 or 10 orbits and then decay. That's in the slightly sub-90-miles altitude range.

[djellison]

And as fans of orbiter know - the kick need to raise from say 500x90 to 500x500 isnt that much iirc

(goes away, opens orbiter)

Yeah - from a 500km x 90km orbit - I was at 7055m/sec and needed to raise that to 7174 m/s to circularise at 500k (ish) - we're taking 120m/sec. I doubt, to be honest, if it's got that much kick on board.

Depending on the current atmos. conditions, 90km might be enough to kill it in half a dozen orbits or it might survive a dozen or so - who knows. Sans-sails, it's fairly small so not that

This might turn out to be one of those amazing mission-rescue jobs, or it might turn out to be a total loss

Pity - I was really looking forward to spotting it with heavens-above.com


Doug

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

It's a shame they havent been able to launch it on something a bit more reliable - but that would dramaticlly increase the cost. Didn't the last attempt also fail due to a problem with the launch vehicle?

[djellison]

They had a pair of the solar sails packed onto an experimental craft that came to nothing iirc, the idea being a simple lob into space - deploy the sails as a test, then jettison and re-entry in a sub-orbital mode, but nothing came of it.

I suppose they could have gone with a Dnepr - they've worked a few times and are bound to be a similar price http://www.russianspaceweb.com/dnepr.html

Doug

[deglr6328]

Latest news----> its dead. Planetary Soc. weblog confirms it is a suspected launch vehicle failure and signals recieved yesterday were just "phantoms". oh well.

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

Yep, R.I.P. Cosmos 1. The booster's FIRST stage failed only 83 seconds after launch:

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/a...sc/solar_sail_7

Interesting that it took the Russians so long to admit it.

[Bob Shaw]

Perhaps the success of the X-Prize will result in the 'Solar Regatta' being revamped. Hand launch from the ISS anyone? After SuitSat *anything* is possible!

"Aaargh, Jim lad, takes me back, man and boy, thirty years afore the Kevlar ™ mast... ...roger the cabin-boy... ...splice the mainframe..."

"Just fire the Photon Torpedoes will you, Mr Scott?"

[hal_9000]

There is a Cosmos 1 launch video on Planetary Society's site!
http://planetary.org/solarsail/launch_video.html

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[ljk4-1]

TPS trying for Cosmos 2 - but without the Volna rocket

"We are comfortable with the conclusion that Cosmos 1 never made it to orbit because the launch vehicle failed. But we are not comfortable with the reason it happened: the Volna selected for our payload had not been upgraded to correct a known failure mode. We will not fly on a Volna again. We’ve learned that lesson—and it was certainly a hard one. We are now ready to find a new launch vehicle, establish better launch vehicle interfaces, and try again to fly the first solar sail spacecraft."

http://planetary.org/solarsail/update_20050930.html

[ljk4-1]

December 2 , 2005

The Planetary Society solar sail team is working to try again to fly the world’s first solar sail spacecraft. With a tested spacecraft design, almost all flight components available, and at least two attractive launch vehicle possibilities, we are well positioned to reach our goal.

We’ve made considerable progress: Our Lavochkin/Space Research Institute team in Russia has identified two promising and affordable launch vehicles candidates for our spacecraft.

The rest is here:

http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects...e_20051202.html

[ljk4-1]

The Planetary Society (TPS) Executive Director Louis Friedman has
announced that plans are underway for Cosmos 2.

The details here:

http://www.space.com/adastra/adastra_isdc_musk_060504.html

The relief part is that they will be using a Soyuz-Fregat or Cosmos 3M
launcher to get Cosmos 2 into Earth orbit as a piggyback payload.

They may be more expensive rockets, but look what happened when
we tried to launch Cosmos 1 on the cheap.