http://planetary.org/solarsailblog/index_05.html

Jun 22, 2005 | 11:45 PDT | 18:45 UTC

Information from this morning's press briefing

So here's the key point: despite some contradictory information still being out there, it's looking really likely that what we're dealing with is some kind of launch vehicle failure. Wherever Cosmos 1 is -- in a weird orbit or in pieces on the ground somewhere -- clearly something didn't go right during the launch. We are as curious as the rest of you about what happened. But the fact that it is looking like it was a launch vehicle problem has some important implications for where the investigation goes from here.

Remember, our launch vehicle was a converted ICBM, launched by the Russian Navy. As soon as there is an issue with a foreign launch vehicle, The Planetary Society -- which, though it's international, is based here in the U.S.A. -- has to keep our hands off any investigation, because of U.S. law called "ITAR." ITAR stands for International Trafficking in Arms Regulations, and basically it governs the transfer of militarily interesting information between the U.S. and any foreign country. Since nearly all space vehicles have heritage in military vehicles, ITAR also tends to govern interaction between people in the space business here in the U.S. and other countries (and this covers not just Russia but all foreign countries, including Canada and Mexico, everybody). So while we're eager to learn new news, all we can do is to wait for the Russian investigation to proceed, and listen to what they have to tell us once they've drawn their conclusions.

So, what RKA (the Russian space agency) has said so far is that the launch vehicle failed 83 seconds into liftoff, and that the second stage of the rocket didn't separate. But, Lou told us, the data that indicates all of this has been inspected, but not really analyzed. And it's the Russians' job to analyze that stuff. It's safest for us not to speculate too much.

More in a moment.

Jun 22, 2005 | 10:33 PDT | 17:33 UTC

Planetary Society Official Statement

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.