Two space vehicles will be launced from a russian submarine in the Barents Sea soon. They will be launched with a Volna carrier rocket. The two vehicles are Cosmos 1 and Demonstrator-2R. Cosmos 1 will be the world’s first solar sail spacecraft if all goes well.

Space.com: Cosmos 1 Solar Sail Spacecraft Heads to Loading Site

A private team of space-savvy civilians has hit a major milestone in plans to launch the first spacecraft propelled by sunlight after shipping the small probe to be loaded atop ballistic missile.

The solar sail-propelled Cosmos 1 vehicle, hailed as the world’s first solar sail spacecraft, has left its Moscow testing center and now bound to Severomorsk, Russia, where it will be loaded into a modified intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and readied for a June 21 launch, mission planners announced Monday.

Cosmos 1 is set to fly atop a Volna rocket and launch from a Russian submarine submerged beneath the Barents Sea. If all goes well, the spacecraft will unfurl its solar sails in Earth orbit and demonstrate the first, controlled use of solar sail propulsion.

“Reaching this milestone puts us on the doorstep to space,” said Louis Friedman, Cosmos 1 project director and executive director of The Planetary Society, a space advocacy group that organized the upcoming space shot. “We are proud of our new spacecraft and hope that Cosmos 1 blazes a new path into the solar system, opening the way to eventual journeys to the stars.”




A rocket aboard a Russian submarine will hurl the solar sail craft high above Earth. Click to enlarge.

RIA Novosti - TWO SPACE VEHICLES TO BE LAUNCHED FROM SUB

May 27 2005

Two space vehicles have been delivered to Severomorsk, the North fleet's base on the Kola peninsula, for being launched with the Volna carrier rocket from board a submarine.

"These are a vehicle with the solar sail Cosmos 1 and pneumatic breaks Demonstrator-2R," a spokesman for the Lavochkin design bureau reports.

The Demonstrator-2R vehicle has been manufactured by order from the European Space Agency and the German company EADS ST. The launch is scheduled for July 5-8, 2005.

news@nature.com: Solar sail set to launch

The revolutionary spacecraft Cosmos 1 is due to launch from a Russian submarine on Tuesday 21 June.

The submarine launch from the Barents Sea, planned for 19:46 GMT, should dispatch Cosmos 1 aboard a converted Volna intercontinental ballistic missile.

Latest Weblog


Jun 21, 2005 | 13:02 PDT | 20:02 UTC
Launch plus 0 hours 16 min

The kick motor should be firing

Again, we still don't know, this is just according to the nominal timeline.

From Moscow: nothing to report yet, everybody is still waiting. We have nominally reached orbit injection time, but we've got no confirmation of that yet.

Jun 21, 2005 | 12:56 PDT | 19:56 UTC
Launch plus 0 hours 10 min

No celebration yet...

While it was exciting to hear that the launch happened, we at POP didn't celebrate yet. We are waiting for the first signal to be detected. That's what will tell us that everything is OK. That won't happen for several minutes.

Jun 21, 2005 | 12:54 PDT | 19:54 UTC
Launch plus 0 hours 8 min

Stuff we can't see...

There is a lot of stuff going on with the rocket right now that we can't see. By now, the fairing should have separated, and the spacecraft should be starting to spin up in order to achieve a precise orbit insertion burn.

Jun 21, 2005 | 12:48 PDT | 19:48 UTC
Launch plus 0 hours 2 min

Normal first stage separation! WE'RE OFF!

This information is being relayed from Severomorsk to Lavochkin. No official launch time yet, we'll get that in a few minutes.

Jun 21, 2005 | 12:46 PDT | 19:46 UTC
Launch plus 0 hours 0 min

"This is Pasadena, we have nominal launch, unverified."

According to our clocks, launch just happened. We won't know if that's true for several minutes. Brent is continuing to read off the timeline, which you can read for yourself here.

From Russia: they say we are awaiting message from Severomorsk.

Severomorsk is the Russian Navy port from which the sub carrying Cosmos 1 sailed.

Jun 21, 2005 | 12:41 PDT | 19:41 UTC
Launch minus 0 hours 5 min

"T minus 5."

Five minutes to launch. We are now requesting that everyone on the telecon stay quiet unless exchanging information.

Latest Weblog

Jun 21, 2005 | 13:21 PDT | 20:21 UTC
Launch plus 0 hours 35 min

Still nothing at Majuro

Jun 21, 2005 | 13:18 PDT | 20:18 UTC
Launch plus 0 hours 32 min

Little bit of signal at Petropavlovsk

Slava Linkin says Doppler signal was received at beginning, then was lost. That might be connected with the fact that the motor burn was happening at this point.

Jun 21, 2005 | 13:15 PDT | 20:15 UTC
Launch plus 0 hours 31 min

Majuro does not see signal yet

Jun 21, 2005 | 13:11 PDT | 20:11 UTC
Launch plus 0 hours 25 min

Report from Kamchatka is that they did not detect the spacecraft

This isn't necessarily unexpected. Petropavlovsk was a marginal contact, and it would have been happening while the spacecraft was spinning rapidly and thrusting, not an easy signal to deal with.

We are holding our breaths for the Majuro contact.