Cosmos I and More

I don't know about you, but I think outer space is fascinating. The Planetary Society does more than its share of protecting space exploration, and that's both sad and excellent. (I'd be a member myself if I wasn't too young, but I digress.) The solar sail Cosmos I is being launched, the first of such an experimental spacecraft. Voagers 1 and 2 are continuing to send us information (Voyager 1 may have crossed the Termination Shock and entered true interstellar space--why we should keep it funded). The New Horizons mission to Pluto the (non-)planet has been saved by the Planetary Society (I put my name on the petition to save it). The Pioneer Effect, which may sadly be unknown (I'm getting to that), is also interesting (it deals with an unknown effect on a spacecraft's trajectory, documented only by the Pioneers because of special instrumentation. We'd know more now but, alas, the nine-track data tapes are in a box underneath a NASA stairway. The nine-track players are scheduled to be demolished and so we won't be able to read the tapes unless the Planetary Society [I love these guys...don't take that the wrong way] saves them). You can find out more (or donate to the Pioneer cause) at the Planetary Society website (http://www.planetary.org). That should be the right address.
Anyway, I'd love to know your comments.
Be watching the news for Cosmos I!
End of line.

-Snoopy

From that website:

In the past twenty-four hours, the Russian space agency (RKA) has made a tentative conclusion that the Volna rocket carrying Cosmos 1 failed during the firing of the first stage. This would mean that Cosmos 1 is lost.

While it is likely that this conclusion is correct, there are some inconsistent indications from information received from other sources. The Cosmos 1 team observed what appear to be signals, that looks like they are from the spacecraft when it was over the first three ground stations and some Doppler data over one of these stations. This might indicate that Cosmos 1 made it into orbit, but probably a lower one than intended. The project team now considers this to be a very small probability. But because there is a slim chance that it might be so, efforts to contact and track the spacecraft continue. We are working with US Strategic Command to provide additional information in a day or so.

If the spacecraft made it to orbit, its autonomous program might be working, and after 4 days the sails could automatically deploy. While the chances of this are very, very small, we still encourage optical observers to see if the sail can be seen after that time.

Yet another great use of money.