MOSCOW
(Interfax) -- A strategic nuclear-powered submarine in service with the
Northern Fleet (Project 667, Delta IV under NATO classification) has gone to
sea and taken position to launch the Volna carrier rocket with a solar sail.
"The
submarine has taken a position specified in the Barents Sea," a source in
the Russian Navy General Staff told Interfax.
According
to him, the rocket is to be launched on Wednesday night (3:46 p.m. June 21 EDT).
At
the same time he did not rule out the feasibility of postponing the launch in
light of the failed launch of the Molniya-M
carrier rocket, carrying a military satellite, from the Plesetsk Space Center.
Vyacheslav
Davidenko, press-secretary of the Russian Federal Space Agency, told Interfax-Military
News Agency earlier that the launch of the solar sail was to take place at
11.46 p.m. Moscow time (1946 GMT) on Tuesday.
"The
space launch will allow technologies to be tested. For instance, the spacecraft
fitted with a solar sail will be able to move in space by capitalizing on the
sunlight pressure," Davidenko said.
The
solar sail is a special structure, coated with a light-reflecting compound and
consisting of eight leafs with an overall area of 600 sq. m, which sustain the
sunlight. On hitting the surface of the solar sail and being reflected, sun
rays transmit their energy to the spacecraft. The sunlight pressure is extremely
low, but given its constant effect, the spacecraft can reach high speed.
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