Solar sail vehicle launched from Russian submarine

Moscow, : A solar sail vehicle designed to be propelled by the pressure of sunlight blasted into space from a Russian submarine Tuesday as part of a joint Russian-U.S project attempting the first controlled flight of a solar sail, space officials said.

A Volna booster rocket launched the unmanned spacecraft from a submerged Russian submarine in the northern Barents Sea at 11:46 p.m. Moscow time (1946GMT), said Lidia Avdeyeva, a spokeswoman for the Lavochkin institute involved in the project.

``The launch was successful,'' she said.

The aim is for streams of solar energy particles to push a giant, reflecting sail through space the way wind propels sailboats across water.

The spacecraft, called ``Solar Sail,'' weighs about 110 kilograms (242 pounds) and is designed to go into an orbit more than 800 kilometers (500 miles) high.

It should take the spacecraft 1 hour and 40 minutes to make a full orbit around earth.

Solar sails are envisioned as a potential means for achieving interstellar flight in the future, allowing such spacecraft to gradually build up great velocity and cover large distances.

The Solar Sail was expected to separate from the booster at 12:29 a.m. Moscow time on Wednesday (2029GMT Tuesday).

The ``Solar Sail'' will orbit the earth for four and a half days while the vehicle undergoes tests. Then inflatable tubes will stretch the sail material out and hold it rigid in eight 49.5-foot-long structures resembling the blades of a windmill.

Each blade can be turned to reflect sunlight in different directions so that the craft can ``tack,'' much like a sailboat in the wind.

Attempts in the past to unfold similar devices in space have ended in failure.

In 1999, Russia attempted a similar experiment with a sun-reflecting device, but the deployment mechanism jammed and the device burned up in the atmosphere.

In 2001, Russia launched another such experiment, but the device failed to separate from the booster.

The project involves Russia's Lavochkin research production institute and is financed by an organization affiliated to the U.S. Planetary Society.

The mission's cost is estimated at euro3.3 million (US$4.03 million) by U.S. project organizers.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has invested about US$30 million in space-sail technology, something that existed solely in science-fiction novels a decade ago. Yet the reflective solar sail could power missions to the sun and beyond within a decade.