Success of solar sail launch unknown
BY STEPHEN CLARK
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
Posted: June 21, 2005
Russian sailors launched the world's first solar sail from a nuclear
submarine today, but the Cosmos 1 craft went missing a short time later
and has not been located in orbit. Russian news services reported the
rocket's first stage experienced an engine problem, suggesting that the
sail either shot into the wrong orbital perch or never achieved orbit at
all.
The Volna rocket -- a converted ballistic missile -- blasted out of its
launch tube aboard the Borisoglebsk at 1946 GMT (3:46 p.m. EDT). The
Russian Navy submarine was stationed underwater in the Barents Sea
offshore Russia's northern coast.
The Planetary Society responsible for the mission provided online
updates as reports came into their project operations center in
Pasadena, California, this afternoon. The day began with nervous
optimism, but that evolved into frustration and confusion following the
launch.
Officials had set up two portable UHF communication stations at
Petropavlovsk on the Kamchatka peninsula in far eastern Russia and on
the island of Majuro in the Pacific's Marshall Islands. Neither facility
reported any direct telemetry contact with the spacecraft during the
first half-hour after launch.
However, a Doppler tracking signal did momentarily track the spacecraft
at Petropavlovsk a little over ten minutes into the flight. The signal
was then lost, possibly due to the planned burn of the orbital injection
kick motor.
"They have analyzed the Petropavlovsk data and all indications are that
the spacecraft was running its program as expected, at least at the
beginning of the Kamchatka contact," officials said.
Project Director Louis Friedman -- watching the events unfold from
mission control in Moscow -- said the Doppler data also indicated the
kick motor did fire for the planned the duration. But now that seems
uncertain. Further analysis of the tracking information shows what
appears to be acceleration as the engine burn begins, however, the
signal gets "noisy" and difficult to understand.
"Indications are that (the) orbit burn was received over Kamchatka. That
data cuts off. This could be normal, related to the rocket firing; or it
could indicate an anomaly. This is unknown," Friedman said.
"It looks like it may be a long night here in Moscow and a long day in
Pasadena."
A later communications opportunity via permanent ground stations over 90
minutes after launch also turned up no news on the fate of Cosmos 1. The
Tarusa UHF station and the Bear Lakes S-band antenna near Moscow, along
with another pair of UHF and S-band antennas at Panska Ves in the Czech
Republic, were to have had marginal views of the spacecraft at low
elevations near the horizon.
As the intermittent Volna rocket telemetry was further analyzed,
officials noted potential problems during the launch phase. "There is
some that doesn't appear quite right," said Emily Lakdawalla, Project
Operations Assistant and Image Processing Coordinator for Cosmos 1.
"At the same point, there is this apparent indication of an orbit
insertion motor firing at about the right time. But nothing happened
after that, except the data went noisy, and we don't know," she reported
shortly after 2200 GMT (6:00 p.m. EDT).
Attempts to track the spacecraft by the U.S. military also revealed no
evidence of the craft in orbit. That indicated the solar sail was either
shot into the wrong orbital perch or never achieved orbit at all. A
shortened firing by the first stage would explain either scenarios.
"Negative news is not good news," said Planetary Society Chairman Bruce
Murray. "On the other hand, we do not have direct evidence for failure.
This is not what we'd hoped to have happen."
The next communications passes at Tarusa and Bear Lakes are slated for
about 0423 GMT (12:23 a.m. EDT) Wednesday morning. But that timing
assumes the spacecraft is flying in the intended orbit.
The potential that Cosmos is even circling the planet tonight is
questionable, based on a Russian news story that quotes the Northern
Fleet as saying the first stage engine experienced "a spontaneous
stoppage" 83 seconds into launch. The vehicle was allowed to continue
flying because it lacked a destruct system. But there has been no
further confirmation of the report.
If the Volna did fail, it would be the second launch mishap of the day
for the Russian space program. A military communications satellite
crashed back to Earth this morning after its Molniya rocket failed to
deliver the craft to orbit. See our separate story on that botched
mission here.
The three stages of the liquid-fueled Volna booster were to have
completed their job just over six minutes after liftoff. The third stage
was then to have jettisoned, followed by the release of the protective
payload fairing that shielded the Cosmos 1 spacecraft during its launch
through the lower atmosphere.
Thrusters were then slated to fire to spin up the solar sail to about
22.5 revolutions per minute for stabilization prior to the orbital
injection kick motor's ignition to inject Cosmos 1 into its 500-mile
high orbit. That was expected to come at a point 15 minutes, 45 seconds
into the flight, while cutoff was programmed to occur almost four
minutes later.
Plans then called for the spacecraft to spin down, followed by the
separation of Cosmos 1 from its kick motor. Four electricity-producing
solar panels were expected to deploy about 44 minutes after liftoff to
relieve the strain on batteries that powered the craft during the
initial portion of the flight.
Solar sails could play a key role in future long-distance space missions
because they are able to utilize the Sun's light pressure by essentially
unfurling large lightweight structures that can reflect light. This
lessens the need to carry large amounts of massive chemical rocket fuels
for maneuvering thrusters.
Developed and built by Russia's NPO Lavochkin firm at a factory outside
Moscow, Cosmos 1 was largely funded by The Planetary Society members,
private donors, and a science media venture known as Cosmos Studios.
Cosmos 1 draws upon decades of research and testing of the solar sail
concept, but this mission marks the first time such a craft has ever
been sent into orbit to demonstrate the ability to use particles
sunlight known as photons as a means of propulsion.
Deployment tests on the ground and in space have been carried out over
the past few years by space agencies around the world, but Cosmos 1 will
be the first to fully incorporate a solar sail structure to attempt to
demonstrate the feasibility of its use as a propulsion system.
Ground controllers at the primary operations center in Russia will
verify the performance of all aspects of the spacecraft before going
ahead with the deployment of eight ultra-thin sail blades a few days
after launch.
Each blade is composed of a reinforced mylar material that measures just
five microns thick, or about a quarter of the thickness of a normal
household trash bag. They were compactly folded and housed inside
containers for launch.
From its perch some 500 miles high, Cosmos 1 is expected to be visible
to skywatchers around the world after it unfurls its eight solar sail
blades no earlier than Sunday in pairs of four at a time.
Each blade is about 50 feet in length, and the entire structure will
span about 100 feet tip-to-tip. The eight blades will cover a surface
area of about 6,500 square feet. This is well over the size of a
regulation basketball court.
The Planetary Society is seeking input from amateur observers throughout
the mission to help determine just how bright and reflective the sails
are. It is believed Cosmos 1 will be one of the brightest satellites
crossing the night sky. Enthusiasts can also submit photos of the craft
passing high above for entry into a contest.
More elaborate observations of Cosmos 1 will come from the United States
Air Force Maui Optical and Supercomputing Site in Hawaii. High
resolution cameras will attempt to gather detailed images of the
spacecraft soon after the sails spring into action.
Once the sails are stabilized after the deployment, officials will
attempt to rotate the blades and use the sail to control the orientation
of the spacecraft. The blades are mounted on a fixture that can be moved
to shift the angle of the sail to the Sun.
After several weeks, it is hoped that tracking data will reveal the
affects of light pressure from the Sun propelling the sails into a
higher orbit around Earth. Officials would consider such information as
proof that the experiment was a success.
Cameras aboard Cosmos 1 will also capture images to downlink to Earth
from shortly after launch and through the deployment of the solar sail
to get an up-close view of how the spacecraft is functioning.
The 220-pound Cosmos 1 had to clear many hurdles before finally being
shipped from its NPO Lavochkin factory to the Russian naval port at
Severmorsk on the Barents Sea inside the Arctic Circle.
A testbed of the craft launched aboard another Volna rocket in July 2001
on a suborbital test flight, but a separation mechanism failed. The
demonstrator likely crashed in Russia's far east and was never recovered.
Russian officials put the Volna system through an extended series of
tests to determine and fix the problem that plagued not only the Cosmos
1 test flight, but also the mission of an inflatable heat shield
demonstrator in 2002. The rocket was finally cleared in late 2003
allowing the final assembly of the spacecraft to be completed through
the following year prior to the transfer of the satellite to Severmorsk
last month.
--
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