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Planetary News: Cosmos 1 - Solar Sail (2005)

Solar Sail Update: Hours to Launch

By Amir Alexander
June 20, 2005

With less than 24 hours to launch, the Cosmos 1 team is going through final preparations. At Project Operations Pasadena (POP), located at The Planetary Society headquarters, the team, headed by Project Operations Manager Jim Cantrell, has been finishing up a series of rehearsals. Project Director Louis Friedman, meanwhile, is already in Moscow, where he will follow the mission from the Flight Control Center at NPO Lavochkin. Bud Schurmeier, the project’s Systems Engineering consultant, is there with him.

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Speaking from Moscow, Friedman described the ongoing preparations in Russia leading up to the launch. “We had a meeting today at the Tarusa ground station with the entire group,” he said. Tarusa is a UHF tracking station located 75 miles southeast of Moscow, which will play a critical role in the early stages of the mission. “During the first orbit,” explained Friedman, “Tarusa will be responsible for most of the ground control and communications with the spacecraft.”

At the meeting Friedman and Schurmeier heard a detailed report on the spacecraft testing that took place at the naval base in Severmorsk during the past two weeks. All the tests were satisfactory, and the spacecraft is ready for flight. The meeting also included a report on the ground-station preparations. Communications between the different stations have been tested, including the transference of data between Russian, Czech, and American stations spread around the world.

“It is looking good - no one has reported any anomalies or problems,” said Friedman. “The feeling here is the usual one before a space mission, ranging from nervousness to optimism.” “The group here is extremely professional and experienced – they have done this before.” But as is always the case with a space mission, Friedman added, “there are no guarantees.”

Meanwhile in Severmorsk, the submarine that will launch Cosmos 1 has been designated. It is none other than the Borisoglebsk – the same Delta III nuclear submarine that launched the suborbital flight of the solar sail in July 2001. Borisoglebsk will leave harbor in the evening hours of Tuesday, June 21, and cruise for 4 or 5 hours to its designated launch station. Then, shortly before midnight (19:46 UT), it will launch the Volna rocket carrying Cosmos 1, the first Solar Sail spacecraft.