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''Cosmos 1'' was a project by Cosmos Studios and The Planetary Society to test a solar sail in space. As part of the project, an unmanned solar sail spacecraft christened ''Cosmos 1'' was launched into space at 15:46:09 EDT (19:46:09 UTC) on June 21, 2005 from the submarine ''Borisoglebsk'' in the Barents Sea. However, a rocket failure prevented the spacecraft from reaching its intended orbit. Once in orbit, the spacecraft was supposed to deploy a large sail, upon which photons from the Sun would push, thereby increasing the spacecraft's velocity (the contributions from the solar wind are similar, but of much smaller magnitude). Had the mission been successful, it would have been the first ever orbital use of a solar sail to speed up a spacecraft, as well as the first space mission by a space advocacy group. The project budget was US$4 million. The Planetary Society planned to raise another $4 million for ''Cosmos 2'', a reimplementation of the experiment provisionally to be launched on a Soyuz resupply mission to the International Space Station. The Discovery Channel was an early investor.〔(Cosmos 2 )〕 However, advances in technology and the greater availability of lower mass piggyback slots on more launch vehicles led to a redesign similar to NanoSail-D, called LightSail-1, announced in November 2009. ==Planned mission profile== To test the solar sail concept, the ''Cosmos 1'' project launched an orbital spacecraft with a full complement of eight sail blades on June 21, 2005 — the summer solstice. The spacecraft had a mass of 100 kg (220 lb) and consisted of eight triangular sail blades which would be deployed from a central hub after launch by the inflating of structural tubes. The sail blades were each 15 m long, had a total surface area of 600 square meters, and were made of aluminized reinforced PET film (MPET). The spacecraft was launched on a Volna rocket (a converted SS-N-18 ICBM) from a Russian Delta III submarine, the ''Borisoglebsk'', submerged in the Barents Sea. The spacecraft's initial circular orbit would have been at an altitude of about 800 km, where it would have unfurled the sails. The sails would then have gradually raised the spacecraft to a higher earth orbit. "''Cosmos 1'' might boost its orbit 31 to 62 miles (to 100 km ) over the expected 30-day life of the mission," said Louis Friedman of the Planetary Society. The mission was expected to end within a month of launch as the mylar of the blades would degrade in sunlight. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Cosmos 1」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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