science · 21 June 2005 · 20 years ago
In 2005, the world's first solar sail spacecraft placed in orbit to test controlled flight was launched on a Volna rocket fired from a Russian submarine submerged in the Barents Sea. A 825-km quasi-polar orbit was intended for the 112-kg Cosmos-1 spacecraft with an eight-petalled solar sail - 650 square metres of a thin aluminium alloy coated film. The non-profit U.S. Planetary Society financed the four million dollar project, built in Russia by the Lavochkin Association and the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy. It was designed for experiments in controlled flight while in orbit, achieved by rotating each sail to change its pitch, to test the possiblility of propulsion, though very small, provided by the impact of light radiation.
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