http://en.rian.ru/science/20050622/40565459.html

URGENT: Cosmos 1 project American leaders: two trackers catch weak satellite signal
10:22

WASHINGTON, June 22 (RIA Novosti, Arkady Orlov) - The American leaders of the Cosmos 1 project said Wednesday two tracker stations had caught a weak signal from the satellite.

Trackers in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in the Russian Far East and a mobile station in Majuro on the Marshall Islands have detected what the Americans believe is a signal from a space apparatus, the U.S. Planetary Society said.

Data from the Panska Ves tracker station in the Czech Republic showed that "Panska Ves also reportedly saw some similar kind of data, with similar kinds of patterns," the U.S. Planetary Society web site, www.planetary.org, said.

If confirmed, "it [Cosmos 1] has to be in orbit, and not crashed somewhere in the Pacific Ocean," the web site said.

http://planetary.org/solarsailblog/index_04.html

Jun 21, 2005 | 22:05 PDT | Jun 22 05:05 UTC

What happened this afternoon:

So, it may be clear to you by now that some of this information began to come in much earlier this afternoon. We got a phone call from Viktor Kerzhanovich, who was our guy in Majuro, at maybe around 4 this afternoon local time, saying that he thought he might have seen some signal. But he wasn't sure. Being in a remote location, he had to get the data onto a memory stick and drive it to another computer and then email it to us, which took some time. I relayed the data to Russia as the guys here started scratching their heads about it. It was really sketchy. And as Jim has said to the press just now, if this was all we had, we would not be sounding very hopeful about the mission right now. It was not enough of a lead for us to talk about publlicly, because it was so questionable.

But as the guys started making some sense of the Majuro data, the sense that they were getting was consistent with the sense they were getting out of the Petropavlovsk data. Which was Really Good News. Individually, both data sets were rather sketchy, but together they began to make a consistent story.

In the meantime, once we had told Lou about the Majuro data, he replied that the Russians were thinking that maybe they had some kind of marginal contact with Panska Ves. Which, if true, is Tremendously Good News. If Cosmos 1 made it all the way around the southern end of the Earth and back up, across the equator, to Panska Ves, that means that it has to be in orbit, and not crashed somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.

Just to close, here is a map of what we expected the ground track to be (white line) on Cosmos 1's first orbit. You can see where it was expected to go. How far it may have been from that line we just don't know. But we're feeling much better now that it may still be up there somewhere.

So we hope. And we'll look again tomorrow. Between now and then -- we sleep. My next update will be posted some time after 08:00 PDT / 15:00 UT. Goodnight and thanks for reading.

Jun 21, 2005 | 21:41 PDT | Jun 22 04:41 UTC

"We have a live spacecraft..."

...we think.

We got spacecraft telemetry data from Kamchatka. We feel reasonably confident that what we saw was real signal. In going back through the Majuro data, Viktor reported this afternoon that we now think we got about 10 seconds of data from that pass. And that 10 seconds of data is consistent enough with the stuff from Kamchatka that we're pretty sure that Viktor saw something that originated from Cosmos 1. Panska Ves also reportedly saw some similar kind of data, with similar kinds of paterns.

So what this means is that we are probably in orbit, but it's not the orbit that we thought it was. So now we search. It could take days to find. We hope to hear from Strat Comm again tomorrow morning.

Where could we be? Odds are, if it was a problem with the launch vehicle, the launch vehicle more likely underperformed than overperformed. That means our orbit is more likely elliptical than circular, and also lower, and therefore faster than we expect. Without knowing where the spacecraft is, it becomes harder and harder to find as we go out from the launch date. Strategic Command has not seen the spacecraft -- we don't know why.

So -- we still don't know where it is, and we're still not in contact with it, which presents a serious problem. We're doing what we can to find it. But the fact that we think we saw it at Majuro and Panska Ves earlier today, means it's alive and in orbit, and there's a much better chance than it seemed earlier today that we could find it again.

Jun 21, 2005 | 21:36 PDT | Jun 22 04:36 UTC

Planetary Society Official Statement

We continue to search for the Cosmos 1 spacecraft. We have reviewed our telemetry recordings and have found what we believe are spacecraft signals in the data recorded at the tracking stations in Petropavlovsk, Kamchatka and Majuro, Marshall Islands. The review of data received at the tracking station in Panska Ves, Czech Republic also appears to indicate a spacecraft signal. If confirmed, these data will indicate that Cosmos 1 made it to orbit. We will continue to monitor planned telemetry sessions and will be working with U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) to locate Cosmos 1.

Jun 21, 2005 | 19:40 PDT | Jun 22 02:40 UTC

There's going to be one last update tonight.

That "good ground station contact" I keep talking about is scheduled to begin at 04:24 UT (21:24 PDT). We are all waiting around here at POP for that pass to take place. Jim and Greg and Brent and Viktor have been getting their heads together, coming up with speculative theories, trying what fits, seeing what doesn't. They are going to try to say some more about what we might know after that potential ground station contact ends, at around 9:40 pm local Pasadena time, which is 04:40 UT. I'll let you know what they say then.

But I can tell you already, all is not lost. We know that the worst thing that could have happened, the rocket blowing up or something -- didn't happen. We do have spacecraft data. There's certainly still hope that we may have a live spacecraft. Stay tuned