How and why the Russian experiment to launch a solar sail from a submarine in the arctic sea failed
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On July 20, a three-stage missile was launched from the Russian submarine "Borysoglubsk" found in the Barents Sea, the Arctic region, and it carried a spacecraft: "Cosmos-." 1 The ballistic missile was nationalized, and the unmanned spacecraft was built at "Bakkin Industries" near Moscow , funded by the American Planetary Society.
The purpose of the operation: to try and deploy the world's largest solar sail in space - and to test whether it is possible to launch orbital spacecraft powered by this unique means. But the experiment failed - and the spaceship fell uncontrollably in Kamchatka.
The idea of the "sail of the sun" is not new. About two hundred years ago it became clear that light rays exert a tiny pressure on illuminated bodies. The pioneers of the idea of space flight, the Russian scientists Cholkovsky and Zander, proposed space flights powered by the pressure of the sun's rays. In 1959, the routes that would be required for this were calculated for the first time.
A solar-powered spacecraft must be large and light-weight. The larger the area that will be directed to the sun, the greater the pressure that the light rays will exert on it. The smaller the mass of the aircraft - the tiny radiation pressure will accelerate to a greater speed - after a given period of time.
All the designs that dealt with solar radiation pressure propulsion were based on a very thin reflective surface. – and this is the sun sail.
Similar to a sailing ship at sea, a spaceship will also encounter the problem of the retirement of the sail. At launch, the sail is folded like a parachute in the parachute pod. Upon arrival at a suitable flight room - the container should be opened and the thin, transparent membrane will be removed from it, which will reflect the sunlight like a mirror. It must be placed exactly in front of the sun's rays.
These problems seem seemingly insignificant - but they are complex when the sail is nothing but a very thin plastic membrane, coated with aluminum and less than the thickness of the wall of a toy balloon.
The surface area of the sail in "Cosmos-1" was 600 square meters and was built like a flower with eight petals, each 15 meters long. Its opening from the tank was planned to be done by inflating tubes, similar to stretching the wings of a butterfly emerging from its cocoon - and in only 60 seconds, after detaching the spacecraft A malfunction in the separation mechanism prevented the controlled inflation and the experiment failed.
This was not the first failure of the unique scientific operation: during the installation of the spacecraft on the rocket, in the port of Murmansk, the mechanism for inflating the sail tubes was accidentally activated. The fault probably created a chain reaction and caused the main fault in the launch.
What is clear is that the two failures together will slow down the progress of the project. In the original plan, the Russians intended to launch towards the end of the year an orbital spacecraft that, at an altitude of 850 km above the Earth's surface, had to raise its orbit only with the help of the pressure of the sun's rays.
Now it is to be hoped that the entire project will not be canceled - and that it will really be proven that this economical technology is viable.
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