Cosmos 1
Mission type | Technology demonstration[1] |
---|---|
Operator | The Planetary Society |
Mission duration | Failed to orbit 30 days (planned) |
Spacecraft properties | |
Manufacturer | The Planetary Society |
Launch mass | 100 kg (220 lb) |
Dimensions | 30 m (98 ft) in diameter |
Start of mission | |
Launch date | 21 June 2005, 19:46:09 K-496 Borisoglebsk, Barents Sea |
Contractor | Makeyev Rocket Design Bureau |
End of mission | |
Destroyed | Failed to orbit |
Orbital parameters | |
Reference system | Geocentric orbit (planned) |
Regime | Low Earth orbit |
Altitude | 800 km (500 mi) |
Inclination | 80.00° |
Cosmos 1 was a project by
Had the mission been successful, it would have been the first ever orbital use of a solar sail to speed up a spacecraft, as well as the first space mission by a
Planned mission profile
To test the solar sail concept, the Cosmos 1 project launched an
The spacecraft was launched on a
The mission was expected to end within a month of launch, as the mylar of the blades would degrade in sunlight.
Possible beam propulsion
The solar-sail craft could also have been used to measure the effect of artificial microwaves aimed at it from a radar installation. A 70 m (230 ft) dish at the Goldstone facility of NASA Deep Space Network would have been used to irradiate the sail with a 450 kW beam. This experiment in beam-powered propulsion would only have been attempted after the prime mission objective of controlled solar-sail flight was achieved.
Tracking
The craft would have been visible to the naked eye from most of the Earth's surface: the planned orbit had an inclination of 80°, so it would have been visible from latitudes of up to approximately 80° north and south.
A network of tracking stations around the world, including the
Physics
The craft would have been gradually accelerating during each orbit as a result of the radiation pressure of photons colliding with the sails. As photons reflected from the surface of the sails, they would transfer momentum to them. As there would be no air resistance to oppose the velocity of the spacecraft, acceleration would be proportional to the number of photons colliding with it per unit time. Sunlight amounts to a tiny 5×10−4 m/s2 acceleration in the vicinity of the Earth. Over one day, the spacecraft's speed would reach 45 m/s (150 ft/s); in 100 days its speed would be 4,500 m/s (15,000 ft/s), in 2.74 years 45,000 m/s (150,000 ft/s).
At that speed, a craft would reach Pluto, a very distant dwarf planet in the Solar System, in less than 5 years,[7] although in practice the acceleration of a sail drops dramatically as the spacecraft gets farther from the Sun. However, in the vicinity of Earth, a solar sail's acceleration is larger than that of some other propulsion techniques; for example, the ion thruster-propelled SMART-1 spacecraft has a maximum acceleration of 2×10−4 m/s2, which allowed SMART-1 to achieve lunar orbit in November 2004 after launch in September 2003.
Other aspects
Besides the main spacecraft, launched in June 2005, the Cosmos 1 project has funded two other craft:
- A suborbital test was attempted in 2001 with only two sail blades. The spacecraft failed to separate from the rocket.
- A second orbital spacecraft ( in May 2015.
One of Cosmos 1 solar-sail blades was displayed at the Rockefeller Center office complex in New York City in 2003.
References
- ^ "Private Mission - Cosmos 1". The Planetary Society. Archived from the original on 29 September 2007. Retrieved 21 November 2021.
- ^ "Russians say solar-sail vehicle was lost". NBC News. Associated Press. 21 June 2005. Retrieved 7 May 2023.
- ^ Cosmos 2 Archived 2010-04-21 at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ "LightSail Release". The Planetary Society. 9 November 2009. Retrieved 26 April 2010.
- ^ Maugh, Thomas H. II; Morin, Monte (20 June 2005). "Solar Sail". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 20 June 2005.
- ^ Maugh, Thomas H. II; Morin, Monte (22 June 2005). "Solar Sail Is in Space, but Where?; The Planetary Society loses contact with the satellite but detects a faint signal hours later". Retrieved 4 September 2007.
- ^ "Cosmos 1: Sailing on sunlight". BBC News Science/Nature. 22 June 2005. Retrieved 4 September 2007.
- OCLC 7546430.
- ^ "Mission Control Center". The Planetary Society. Retrieved 22 May 2015.
External links
- Cosmos 1 homepage at the Planetary Society
- Planetary Society's solar sail updates and press releases - current information about the Cosmos 2 follow-on project.
- Cosmos 1 page (flash only) from Cosmos Studios
- Near-Term Beamed Sail Propulsion Missions: Cosmos 1 and Sun-Diver at the Wayback Machine (archived March 18, 2007)
- Space technology: Setting sail for history (Nature, February 16, 2005)
- Space yacht rides to stars on rays of sunlight (The Guardian, February 27, 2005)
- Cosmos 1 to test solar sail (Wired News, June 16, 2005)
- Cosmos 1 videos (Windows Media, RealPlayer, QuickTime formats)