MOSCOW. July 20 (Interfax) - A Volna naval launch vehicle carrying a Kosmos-1 sub-orbital spacecraft took off at 4:31 a.m. Moscow time on Friday from a Kalmar class submarine (Delta-3 by NATO classification) in the Barents Sea, an official in the space force's press service told Interfax.

The objective of the mission is to test the system for opening the paddles of an experimental transport vehicle, which looks like a giant windmill, using for the first time in space exploration solar wind for propulsion.

The Solar Sail program provides for two launches, one to test the paddle opening mechanism of an eight-paddle sail.

Two cameras will film 30 minutes of footage of the opening of the super-thin film fabric. A reentry vehicle carrying the film will land in the area of Kamchatka.

The solar spacecraft can be seen as a very bright spot with the naked eye, experts say.

Such spacecraft would be able to fly, for example, to Jupiter. A super-strong laser beam could move the spacecraft still farther into space.

Originally, the demonstration Kosmos-2 craft was to be launched on April 26, but it was damaged in ground tests in Severomorsk. By some reports, this happened during a rehearsal of the sail opening.

The sailship is formally owned by the international Planetary Society. It was manufactured by the Babakin Research Center, a division of the Lavochkin Association based in Khimki, Moscow region, using its own technologies.

The Planetary Society, headquartered in California, was founded in 1980. The well-known astronomer Carl Sagan was one of the founders. It is the world's largest space-related "interest group" with a membership of 100,000 from over 140 countries.

The Volna launching vehicle is a converted RSM-50 naval ballistic missile, developed by the Makeyev Design Board in Miass, Chelyabinsk region.

The board develops new naval missile systems, modernizes existing systems and works on extending the service life of submarine-launched ballistic missiles.