MOSCOW (AP) -- Forget
e-mail. How about space mail? In an experiment combining elements of a package
delivery service, the sport of kite surfing and a REALLY big fishing reel,
Russian and European engineers on Tuesday sought to pioneer a technology that
could be used in the future to retrieve cargo from space.
The experiment involving a
19-mile, super-strength
tether hit a glitch, however, when the line failed to unwind fully, but
Russian Mission Control said it hopes to salvage the test by recalculating the
landing capsule's orbit.
"Even a fishing line
could get stuck sometimes," Mission Control spokesman Valery Lyndin told
The Associated Press.
The second Young Engineers
Satellite, whose preparation involved nearly 500 university students from
Europe, Japan, North America and Australia, was launched
into orbit Sept. 14 on a Russian-built Foton-M3 spacecraft, along with
other European Space Agency experiments.
The goal of the YES2
experiment was to deliver Fotino -- a 12-pound reddish
spherical capsule the size of a beach ball -- to Earth with the help of a
long tether made of a substance the European Space Agency described as the
world's strongest fiber.
In the experiment, the
Fotino, held in a metal brace by straps, was to be shot out from the Foton-M3
spacecraft with springs as
the tether gradually unwound, swinging the capsule forward into a lower
orbit about 18 miles below.
About 2 1/2 hours later,
after gravity takes firm hold and the entire unit swings in a vertical position
below the spacecraft, the Fotino is then released from its straps and glides
through the atmosphere for about 20 minutes before a parachute deploys and the
sphere bumps to a landing in the steppes of the Central Asian nation of
Kazakhstan.
The capsule has a thermal
shield to protect it from the searing heat of re-entry through the Earth's
atmosphere, while the tether and the holding clamps burn up.
The experiment went awry
when only five miles of the tether were unwound from the spacecraft at about
190 miles above the Earth before the capsule was released, Lyndin said.
The reason for the problem
wasn't immediately clear, Lyndin said. "It could be that the tether got
stuck," he added.
The Fotino is equipped with
a radio beacon to allow experts to track it as it glides down through the
atmosphere, and Mission Control will try to calculate its current orbit to
determine when and where it will land, Lyndin said.
The Russian Space Agency
sought to play down the problem, saying the experiment provided a ''valuable
information about the tether's dynamics in space flight.''
"The results of the
experiment could be considered partly successful,'' it said.
Roger Walker, the project
manager for ESA's Education Office, also played down the glitch, saying on the
agency's Web site that it was a ''largely successful demonstration'' and that
the agency was proud of the students' work, even though full deployment was not
reached.
Lyndin said there had been
other experiments involving tethers deployed in space, but they were not that
long and did not carry parcels.
The tether deployed Tuesday
is .0196 inches thick and is made of Dyneema, which the ESA said is used by
kite surfers.
Associated Press Writer
Mike Eckel contributed to this report from Moscow.
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