A Moscow-based company has resumed its search for its innovative inflatable spacecraft heat shield, which disappeared in the snow-blanketed steppes of southern Russia after what was believed to be a successful landing in February.
Two inflatable shields, made by the Lavochkin Research and Production Association and known as IRDT, were launched on February 8 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on a Soyuz rocket. They rode as piggyback payloads on a test of the new Fregat upper stage, designed for commercial flights. The large heat shield was designed to allow the Fregat vehicle to return to Earth. The small shield carried an experimental container known as a demonstrator.
Several hours after the launch, both reentry shields inflated and reentered the atmosphere, however, no signal was received from either device upon landing south of the town of Orenburg near the border between Kazakhstan and Russia. For several days after launch, search teams faced deep snow, low visibility and difficult terrain in their successful attempt to recover the demonstrator with the remnants of a small reentry shield.
At the time, Lavochkin decided to put off the search for the large IRDT until spring. The company's representatives said that an airborne photographic survey of the expected landing area was begun at the end of April. The search was concentrated along Ilik River, a tributary of Ural River.
This week a three-member team of Lavochkin experts has returned to Moscow from the region with the results of the aerial surveys. The photographs are currently being developed and analyzed, said Konstantin Pichkhadze, the project's leading engineer. At least one suspected site has been identified, however, the experts warned that it could be a dry lakebed.
"All our data says it should be in good condition," Pichkhadze said, "we wouldn't look for it, if we thought it is lost."
Although there are no ground-search teams currently working in the area, Lavochkin placed a classified ad in the local newspaper asking the population to inform the center on any mission-related findings.
Future experiments
While search for Fregat is on, Lavochkin is planning another test of an inflatable reentry device. As it was in the past, European Space Agency (ESA) is sponsoring the experiment. Europe hopes to use the inflatable technology as a cheap and compact way of returning cargo from space, including a possible application on the International Space Station. According to Lavochkin representatives, the U.S. firm
, which specializes in similar technology, was also in contact with Lavochkin to discuss possible cooperation in the field.
Lavochkin representatives said that they are still negotiating with their European partners about the financial issues of the mission and a possible launch date for the experiment. Lavochkin would prefer to refly the device as early as October, however, their European partners believe that more realistic launch date is the first quarter of 2001.
The new experiment will use a submarine-based ballistic missile converted into a launch vehicle. The rocket will send the inflatable shield into a suborbital trajectory, which should land in the Russian far east. The inflatable device will have several improvements stemming from the experience gained in the February launch.
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