In summer of 2005 science fiction should have become science fact. A Russian nuclear submarine fired an ICBM, converted from a weapon of mass destruction into a launch vehicle for peaceful scientific exploration, into Earth orbit. It will be the first test of a revolutionary method of travel that could someday take us to the stars. Cosmos-1 was the world's first solar sail spacecraft. Solar sailing uses uses the pressure from sunglight to propel spacecraft between planets without fuel. In the future, laser or microwave radiation may be used to send spacecraft on epic voyages of planetary exploration. The Planetary Society, a global membership organization and Earth's largest space interest group, and Cosmos Studios, a venture in science-based entertainment that seeks to inspire and uplift, have created this privately funded space mission. The goal of the two is to capture the world's imagination and spur its governments to work together - to initiate a new golden age of exploration. The Babakin Space Center and Space Research Institute in Russia developed the spacecraft, under the direction of a team of American scientists and engineers led by The Planetary Society. Cosmos-1 launched from the Barents Sea on a Volna rocket. The huge, reflective sail should have deployed in an 800km orbit. The goal was to perform the first controlled flight of a new technology.
Credits: The Planetary Society
