Spaceship brings supplies to ISS
Sunbeam-sailing spacecraft deemed ‘mission success’
MOSCOW, Aug 1, (Agencies): An unmanned Russian spaceship carrying tons of supplies to the International Space Station (ISS) has docked with the orbiting laboratory.
The Progress 73 cargo ship blasted off atop a Soyuz rocket at 1210 GMT Wednesday from the Russian space complex in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, and docked with the ISS about 3½ hours later after two orbits.
The Progress is carrying about 3 tons (2.7 metric tons) of food, fuel and supplies to the space station, which currently has six astronauts aboard. Those on the space station now include Nick Hague, Christina Koch and Andrew Morgan of the United States, Russians Alexander Skvortsov and Alexey Ovchinin and Luca Parmitano of Italy.
Meanwhile, a small crowd-funded satellite promoted by TV host and science educator Bill Nye has been propelled into a higher orbit using only the force of sunlight blowing against its sail in space, a novel propulsion developers say could “democratize” spaceflight.
The LightSail 2 spacecraft, roughly the size of a loaf of bread, was launched into orbit in June and unfurled a tin foillike solar sail designed to steer and push the spacecraft, using the momentum of tiny particles of light called photons emanating from the sun, into a higher orbit.
The satellite was developed by the California-based space research and education non-profit group the Planetary Society, whose chief executive is the television personality popularly known as Bill Nye the Science Guy.
The technology promises a virtually inexhaustible source of space propulsion as a substitute for finite supplies of rocket fuels that the current generation of spacecraft rely on to maneuver in flight.
“We are thrilled to declare mission success for LightSail 2,” program manager Bruce Betts said Wednesday on a call convened with reporters to reveal that the spacecraft had raised its own orbit by 1 mile, sailing under the pressure of light beams from the sun.
Flight by light, or “sailing on sunbeams,” as Bill Nye said, could best be used for missions carrying cargo in space or on small satellites with enough room for deploying larger, and thus more powerful, solar sails.
Radiation
Other applications include monitoring solar radiation that interferes with Earthbound communication networks.
The solar sail technology could also reduce the need for expensive, cumbersome rocket propellants and slash the cost of navigating small satellites in space.
“We strongly feel that missions like LightSail 2 will democratize space, enable more people, more organizations around the world to send spacecraft to exciting and remarkable destinations in the solar system that will lead us to answer that deep question: ‘Where did we all come from?’” Nye said.
The LightSail project kicked off in the 1990s, but its first planned prototype, Cosmos 1, was destroyed during a faulty launch on a Russian rocket taking off from a submarine in 2005.
The Planetary Society got its the next prototype, LightSail 1, into space in 2015, but technical problems kept it from climbing high enough to be steered by sunlight.
LightSail 2 became the latest spacecraft to demonstrate space-bound solar sailing after Japan’s experimental IKAROS spacecraft in 2010.
The LightSail project grew from an idea imagined by the society’s co-founders – executive director Louis Friedman and late astronomer and author Carl Sagan – to send a solar sail craft to rendezvous with Halley’s Comet in the 1970s.
A Chinese government space agency is expected to launch its first rocket meant for commercial use in August, putting pressure on other domestic rocket firms to develop their own launch vehicles ahead of an expected commercial satellite boom.
A unit of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp (CASC), the nation’s main space contractor, is working on the final assembly of its Smart Dragon-1 rocket, with a maiden flight expected in August, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) said on Thursday.
China envisions constellations of commercial satellites that can offer services ranging from high-speed internet for aircraft to tracking coal shipments. Reliable, low-cost and frequent rocket launches will be key.
Last week, Beijing-based iSpace became the first private firm to deliver a satellite into orbit on its rocket. Since late last year, two other startups have attempted but failed.
It would take just six months to produce a Smart Dragon rocket and 24 hours to prepare for its launch, according to Chinese state media.