- MOSCOW (AP) -- The Russian space agency is preparing an extravagant
experiment with a space mirror that would illuminate sun-starved northern
cities and act as a "solar sail," officials said Friday.
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- The Znamya (Banner) experiment is to
be launched next February and envisages unfolding a space mirror made of
a membrane covered by a metal layer. In theory, the mirror is to work like
the moon, reflecting sunlight onto some northern parts of Russia during
the long nights.
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- The mirror, around 100 feet (30 meters)
in diameter, would serve as a prototype for even larger models that may
go up later, provided the cash-strapped space agency comes up with funds,
said Mission Control spokesman Valery Lyndin.
-
- "Of course, longer-term prospects
are unclear, given the current fund shortage," Lyndin said in a telephone
interview.
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- Russia also plans to discard the Mir
next year, making further experiments with space mirrors unlikely in the
foreseeable future, he added.
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- Lyndin also acknowledged that building
larger mirrors of several hundred feet (meters) in diameter would be a
much more complex technical task, because they would be much harder to
unfold and maneuver in orbit.
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- According to the plan, the folded membrane
is to be attached to a Progress cargo ship, which is scheduled to blast
off for the Mir space station on Sunday and dock with it on Tuesday.
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- The Progress will unfold the mirror in
February, when the cargo ship will be undocked from the Mir. Usually, it
would be discarded. In this case, the station's crew will guide the cargo
ship using manual controls for a while to see how the mirror performs.
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- Lyndin wouldn't say exactly how long
the experiment would last. Eventually, the cargo ship would be allowed
to burn in the atmosphere as usual.
-
- He said that the scientists will also
study the membrane as a potential "solar sail," a feature that
might allow spaceships of the distant future to sail through space using
solar wind.
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- In February 1993, Russia ran a similar
experiment, but the mirror was barely visible on Earth, Lyndin said. The
new Znamya also would be visible only in good weather and to those who
knew its precise position in orbit. It would resemble a shooting star,
not a large object such as the moon.
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- The mirror had been scheduled to be taken
into orbit earlier this year, but the experiment was delayed due to the
fund shortage.
-
- The money crunch also led to the postponement
of the new Progress launch, which had been originally planned for October
15.
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- Along with the mirror, which weighs only
about 4 kilograms (less than nine pounds), the cargo ship will deliver
some 2.5 tons of regular cargo, including fuel, food, water, equipment
and other supplies to the Mir, Lyndin said.
-
- Among the equipment is a French-made
device to study a stream of micrometeorites bombarding Mir's surface.
-
- Russian cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and
Sergei Avdeyev will go on a spacewalk tentatively scheduled for November
11 to attach the gauge to the station's outer surface, Lyndin said.
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- Space officials initially planned to
keep the 12-year-old Mir in orbit through the end of 1999, but the last
crew is now expected to depart next June because of the money shortage.
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