spacetoday.net: space news from around the webin association with SpaceNews


Solar sail launch date set
Posted: Tue, May 24, 2005, 8:33 AM ET (1233 GMT)
Cosmos 1 solar sail The Planetary Society announced Monday that it will launch Cosmos 1, its solar sail spacecraft, next month from a Russian submarine. Launch of Cosmos 1 on a Volna, a converted Russian sub-launched ballistic missile, is scheduled for a launch window that opens June 21. Once in space, Cosmos 1 will deploy a 30-meter solar sail, using light pressure to gradually expand the spacecraft's orbit. The spacecraft will be the first orbital test of a solar sail, although the technology has been tested in groundbased experiments and suborbital flights. Later in the mission the spacecraft will be used to test if the spacecraft can be propelled by microwaves beamed from the Earth.
<<previous article   next article>>
news in brief
Rocket Lab launches second pair of TROPICS cubesats
Posted: Sat, May 27 11:00 AM ET (1500 GMT)

Virgin Galactic conducts first suborbital spaceflight since 2021
Posted: Sat, May 27 10:56 AM ET (1456 GMT)

South Korea launches eight satellites on KSLV-2
Posted: Sat, May 27 10:52 AM ET (1452 GMT)

news links
Wednesday, May 31


about spacetoday.net   ·   info@spacetoday.net   ·   mailing list