Solar sail probe's fate unknown

[Dover]

Solar sail probe's fate unknown


The fate of an experimental spacecraft designed to use light from the Sun to power space travel is still unknown, scientists monitoring its launch say.
The privately funded Cosmos-1 craft was launched overnight on a Russian missile from a submarine in the Barents Sea.

The Russian Navy began a search for wreckage after launch data suggested the rocket booster failed.

But the US team also working on the project reported that a weak signal from the craft had been detected.

Note of caution

According to the website for the California-based Planetary Society, which sponsored the craft, signals were recorded independently at three ground stations, at Petropavlovsk in Kamchatka, Majuro in the Marshall Islands and Panska Ves in the Czech Republic, that Cosmos-1 was expected to pass over.

But Jiri Simunek, a scientist at Panska Ves, told the BBC News website that no signal had been detected by the Czech tracking station, "just noise". >>>

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4110912.stm