Solar Sail Spacecraft

[dlbpharmd]

This is the coolest:

www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/space/06/21/russi ... index.html

[Damelon]

I heard about that this week. I agree with you.

[I'm Murrin]

Ah, I read a little about this last year - when the JISAS successfully tested the deployment of sails for the first time.
I'd missed this new news - thanks for the link.

This technology certainly seems to have a lot of potential.

[Avatar]

Authur C Clarke: The Wind from the Sun

--A

[Damelon]

I guess it's wait till next time. The rocket failed on launch.

www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/space/06/22/russi ... index.html

[aTOMiC]

Its a terrible shame the launch failed. I would have loved to have seen some real evidence of progress. The potential applications are genuinely exciting. I guess we'll all have to wait till next time.

[I'm Murrin]

Heh, this is a little amusing: According to the New Scientist article on the subject, the sail is probably alright, but they just can't find it.

The weakness of the signals could indicate that the craft is in the wrong orbit, meaning its antennae are not pointing directly at the ground stations. "The good news is we have reason to believe it's alive and in orbit," Planetary Society co-founder Bruce Murray told reporters. "The bad news is we don't know where it is."

www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=dn7558

If they can't work out where it is, they'll not be able to successfully control the unfurling of the sails.

Interesting is this bit:

However, adding to the uncertainty are conflicting media reports from Russia. These claim the Russian space agency as their source, and say the craft crashed near the launch site because the booster rocket suffered engine failure soon after lift off.

So, basically - we still don't have any idea what's happened.

[Avatar]

Familiar.

--A

[Loredoctor]

Very exciting times.

[dlbpharmd]

I'm just wondering - why hasn't NASA tried this before. Are there some who do not believe in this theory of propulsion?

[I'm Murrin]

There are only a very few doubters in the solar sail theory. From last years NS article:

The principle behind solar sailing has, however, yet to be proven to work. At least one physicist has even suggested the trick might be impossible.

In July 2003, Thomas Gold, a physicist at Cornell University in New York, US, caused controversy by suggested that the type of mirror required would not cause the temperature of reflected photons to drop. The heat energy released is important in order to provide the momentum push forward for a craft.

But those behind solar sailing missions remain confident of their goal. "I don’t think there are any doubts," Friedman told New Scientist. He believes Gold crucially ignored the quantum effects of photons in his argument.

[I'm Murrin]

Two days after the launch of the Cosmos 1 solar sail, there is still no agreement between ground controllers on opposite sides of the globe as to what happened to the spacecraft.

It may have crashed back to Earth very soon after launch, or have ended up an unexpected orbit. But either way, the chances of anything being salvaged from the mission now look remote. The Planetary Society, which sponsored Cosmos 1, said late on Wednesday that failure was now “virtually certain”.

www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=dn7568