From: LARRY KLAES (ljk4_at_msn.com)
Date: Wed Jun 22 2005 - 12:30:13 PDT
http://planetary.org/solarsailblog/index_05.html
Jun 22, 2005 | 11:45 PDT | 18:45 UTC
Information from this morning's press briefing
So here's the key point: despite some contradictory information still being
out there, it's looking really likely that what we're dealing with is some
kind of launch vehicle failure. Wherever Cosmos 1 is -- in a weird orbit or
in pieces on the ground somewhere -- clearly something didn't go right
during the launch. We are as curious as the rest of you about what happened.
But the fact that it is looking like it was a launch vehicle problem has
some important implications for where the investigation goes from here.
Remember, our launch vehicle was a converted ICBM, launched by the Russian
Navy. As soon as there is an issue with a foreign launch vehicle, The
Planetary Society -- which, though it's international, is based here in the
U.S.A. -- has to keep our hands off any investigation, because of U.S. law
called "ITAR." ITAR stands for International Trafficking in Arms
Regulations, and basically it governs the transfer of militarily interesting
information between the U.S. and any foreign country. Since nearly all space
vehicles have heritage in military vehicles, ITAR also tends to govern
interaction between people in the space business here in the U.S. and other
countries (and this covers not just Russia but all foreign countries,
including Canada and Mexico, everybody). So while we're eager to learn new
news, all we can do is to wait for the Russian investigation to proceed, and
listen to what they have to tell us once they've drawn their conclusions.
So, what RKA (the Russian space agency) has said so far is that the launch
vehicle failed 83 seconds into liftoff, and that the second stage of the
rocket didn't separate. But, Lou told us, the data that indicates all of
this has been inspected, but not really analyzed. And it's the Russians' job
to analyze that stuff. It's safest for us not to speculate too much.
More in a moment.
Jun 22, 2005 | 10:33 PDT | 17:33 UTC
Planetary Society Official Statement
In the past twenty-four hours, the Russian space agency (RKA) has made a
tentative conclusion that the Volna rocket carrying Cosmos 1 failed during
the firing of the first stage.This would mean that Cosmos 1 is lost.
While it is likely that this conclusion is correct, there are some
inconsistent indications from information received from other sources. The
Cosmos 1 team observed what appear to be signals, that looks like they are
from the spacecraft when it was over the first three ground stations and
some Doppler data over one of these stations. This might indicate that
Cosmos 1 made it into orbit, but probably a lower one than intended. The
project team now considers this to be a very small probability. But because
there is a slim chance that it might be so, efforts to contact and track the
spacecraft continue. We are working with US Strategic Command to provide
additional information in a day or so.
If the spacecraft made it to orbit, its autonomous program might be working,
and after 4 days the sails could automatically deploy. While the chances of
this are very, very small, we still encourage optical observers to see if
the sail can be seen after that time.
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