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Stories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.

Lightsail 1 artist's concept with Milky Way background

Worldwide Network to Track Cosmos 1

From Moscow to the Marshall Islands and California to the Czech Republic, tracking stations around the world will receive data from Cosmos 1, the world's first solar sail spacecraft after it launches on June 21, 2005.

Lightsail 1 artist's concept with Milky Way background

Launching Cosmos 1 on a Soviet ICBM

The biggest reason that NASA—as well as other western space agencies—has not attempted a solar sail flight is that the cost of launching even a small spacecraft is so high that they are unwilling to carry out a mission with very modest goals.

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