First Solar Sail to be launched tomorrow
June 20th, 2005 Leave a comment Visited 50 times, 1 so far today
First Solar Sail to be launched tomorrow
A space advocacy group would be showcasing the next generation technology to power vehicles through space when the Cosmos 1 would be launched tomorrow. They call it Cosmos 1 and if the project is successful, it would provide an elegant method of space travel that uses gentle pressure from sunlight to ply outer space.
The logic behind this technology is that the impact of each light particle, or photon, from sunlight on the spacecraft’s sails would propel the probe through space’s airless, near-frictionless vacuum. This is something very different from the routine flights NASA makes in the space and they sure are interested in this particular phenomenon.
The mission is being funded by the Pasadena, California based Planetary Society and the spacecraft is reported to be costing around a massive USD 4 million. Half of the money is being put in by the Cosmos Studios, which develops documentaries recording such missions.
Most of the weight of normal spacecrafts is taken up by resources to power the crafts such as fuel. This technology would help space organizations to lower the requirement for massive amount aviation fuel stored on the craft to guide it through the space. Cosmos 1 is scheduled to be launched from a Russian submarine in the Arctic Barents Sea and it is expected to reach the earth’s orbit at a height of about 500 miles.
It would rotate around the earth for 4 days and would be taking pictures. On a later stage, its eight sail blades, made of aluminum-backed plastic would unfurl to unleash a 100-foot wide circular craft. This stage is the most crucial aspect of the launch where the possibility of the failure is highest.
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June 22nd, 2005 at 2:06 am
Cosmos 1, of course, aims to do more than demonstrate thrust by solar
radiation; it also aims to demonstrate steerability by a process analogous
to old-time sail tacking. Further, if the mission endures , it is planned to
use a radiotelescope to beam power from here on Earth to add propulsive
force as well.
If these three objectives are actually met over the coming weeks, it would
be fair to claim that Cosmos 1 is, potentially, to interstellar travel what
the Wrights’ Flyer was to modern aviation – and possibly even over a
comparable historical time frame
On this subject, the looming discovery of Earthlike planets is likely to
have an inspirational effect – there is nothing like a concrete destination,
however hard to reach, to focus the dreams of explorers…
June’s “Astronomy Now” carries an article by Professor Webster Cash ,of
Colorado University, who proposes a giant “pinhole camera” -the New Worlds
Imager – to seek out and characterise such Earthlike planets. A large
sunshade with a “pinhole” would screen out the glaring starlight and allow a
well-placed 1 metre telescope to see and examine its planets – the whole
assembly to be placed into a Lagrange orbit.
The engineering problems of transfer, deployment, and control of the
sunshade bear an uncanny resemblance to the techniques required for Cosmos
1.
I have proposed to Professor Cash and TPS that a collaboration on a Cosmos
2- or 3 – built around this idea would be fruitful and would demonstrate
dramatically a powerful application for solar sailing in a reasonable
period of time.
We shall see what the future brings, but I am quietly hopeful that at least
the idea will be seriously considered.!