Some of you may remember the Russian company which recently claimed that they were going to send a manned mission to Mars in less than 10 years, and for under $10 billion. I was very skeptical, to say the least. But now (as Hobbyspace is reporting), they are about to launch a series of test spacecraft, the first of them on June 29th (my birthday!). Here's the description of the test spacecraft:

June 29, 2004 Dnepr launch vehicle will place AKS-1 technological satellite into orbit at the altitude of 800 km for carrying out a number of space experiments:

• testing systems and mechanisms for the deployment of big frameless structures and controlling their position in space;
• testing the latest propellant-free spacecraft position control system;
• testing three kinds of amorphous film solar batteries with silicon crystals;
• the world's first test of using solar pressure for spacecraft motion control;
• testing a new pulsed communication and data transmission system;
• "Mirror" experiment to use a reflector to illuminate the night areas of the Earth from space;
• "Wing" experiment to use the sail plane as the wing for creating the lifting force from atomic oxygen main flow.

A couple of observations here:

1.) If this is real, then it is pretty bloody impressive. I think I'll still be skeptical about their Mars claims for the time being, but one has to admit that it takes a lot of know-how to pull something like this off.

2.) There are going to be some pissed-off folks at the Planetary Society if these guys manage to fly the first solar sail.

3.) Looks like somebody has been taking some notes on the JP Aerospace ballooning-to-space concept. I can't imagine what else the "Wing" experiment could be about.

Hmmmmmm,

Nathan.