PASADENA, California -- Members of the Planetary Society space interest group have let go of all but the last thread of hope that their Cosmos 1 spacecraft survived a botched launch.
The privately-built spacecraft, which was to test new solar sail technology, went missing shortly after it was launched from a Russian navy submarine on Tuesday.
Contradictory data from the Russian space agency and Planetary Society ground stations initially led members to wonder if the spacecraft was intact, but orbiting outside its planned trajectory. The Planetary Society now says it is close to accepting the Russian explanation that the launch missile failed.
"In the past 24 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," the group said in a statement released Wednesday.
"While it is likely that this conclusion is correct, there are some inconsistent indications from information received from other sources," the statement continued. "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."
The lack of clear and immediate information about the spacecraft's whereabouts underscored the low-budget nature of the mission.
The $4 million project was funded entirely by donations from entertainment firm Cosmos Studios, philanthropist Peter Lewis and members of the Planetary Society. To save money, mission planners accepted an offer from Russian space firm NPO Lavochkin to build the spacecraft and launch it from a converted ballistic missile. But that meant facing restrictions that better-funded missions, like those sponsored by NASA, would never have to deal with.
For one, no Planetary Society members actually witnessed the launch live.
For security reasons, mission planners were not allowed on the Russian submarine that fired the ballistic missile carrying Cosmos 1. And the society's executive director, Louis Friedman, opted not to watch the launch from the deck of a nearby ship because it was too far from NPO Lavochkin's mission operations center in Moscow.
So when Cosmos 1 actually did blast out of the Barents Sea on its way to space, at 12:46 p.m. PDT on Tuesday, Friedman got the news from his NPO Lavochkin counterparts. He then relayed the information from Moscow to Cosmos 1 team members in Pasadena in an open conference call.
Listening on the other end, in the living room of the 1920s craftsman-style home that serves as the Planetary Society's offices, approximately 50 team members and reporters burst into applause at the announcement.
The low-tech feel of the mission was not lost on Ann Druyan, founder of Cosmos Studios and the widow of astronomer Carl Sagan.
"It really seems like it’s from another time," she said as she waited with reporters to hear more about the launch. "We’re all straining to hear a voice from around the world."
Because Cosmos 1 was launched from the Barents Sea, it was out of range of major ground tracking stations for some of its initial orbits around Earth. To compensate, the group relied on portable ground stations set up by two Cosmos 1 team members in the Marshall Islands and on the Kamchatka peninsula.
The Marshall Islands station was so remote that mission controllers had to wait as its operator saved incoming signals to a memory stick, drove back to an Internet-connected computer and emailed the data to them.
Science educator and Planetary Society Vice President Bill Nye used the break in activity to joke about how the portable ground stations resembled little more than television antennae on ladders.
“Did you see that antenna that he built?" said Nye. "It looks like I built it (with parts from) Home Depot."
A communications center for the mission, set up in a converted carriage house behind the Planetary Society's offices, was better equipped but equally humble.
Quaintly known as POP, or project operations Pasadena, the center housed several workstations and laptop computers, which mission officials used throughout the day to analyze data and stay in touch with officials at mission operations Moscow, or MOM.
Members regularly used the conference call to remind one another to check their e-mail or IM messages, providing a sharp contrast to the strict communications protocols that NASA enforces during its missions.
At one point, a telephone company operator interrupted the call to ask if the conference was still underway.
“You know, NASA missions get that, too,” joked Planetary Society director of projects Bruce Betts after Friedman calmly explained to the operator that they were indeed still using the line.
At roughly 1:10 p.m., Friedman notified the staff that the Kamchatka ground station did not detect the spacecraft. Ten minutes later, he corrected himself and said the station had actually seen the signal but then lost it.
At 1:30 p.m., Friedman reported that the Marshall Islands station had not detected the signal at all.
"The news is not good," said Cosmos 1 project operations manager Jim Cantrell.
The staff and onlookers in Pasadena settled in to wait for more news.
Finally, at approximately 3:30 p.m., Friedman came on the line again, sounding much more tired than before. With a somber tone, he told the staff that U.S. Strategic Command, which monitors launches for defense purposes, could not detect Cosmos 1 in orbit. Furthermore, Russian officials believed something had gone wrong with the launch, he said. Cosmos 1 was missing.
“Now I think I know why the mission was so affordable," said Druyan as reporters gathered around for her reaction.
It was an attempt at levity, but few people seemed in the mood to laugh anymore.
By 4:30 p.m., the staff had begun to accept that their mission was over, barring a miraculous recovery. The crowd at the Pasadena offices began to clear out, leaving the Cosmos 1 team members to wonder how long the search for the missing craft might go on.
As of Thursday morning, the team was still looking, albeit with diminishing hopes.
"By its very nature, pushing frontiers generates risk," wrote project operations assistant Emily Lakdawalla on the society's blog. "What that leaves us with is the fact that we still built the world's first solar sail spacecraft, and we attempted to launch it. That in itself is an achievement, though of course we wanted to achieve more."
