The Hindu : Front Page : To bring parcels from space

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Wednesday, Sep 26, 2007
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To bring parcels from space

MOSCOW: An experiment that envisaged sending a parcel from space to earth on a 30-km tether fell short of its goal on Tuesday when the fibre rope did not fully unwind, Russian Mission Control said.

The YES2 experiment was prepared by almost 500 students from all over Europe and other areas and put on board the Russian Foton-M3 unmanned spacecraft, which also carried other European Space Agency experiments.

It was intended to deliver a spherical capsule, called Fotino, attached to the end of the tether back to earth — a relatively simple and cheap technology that could be used in the future to retrieve bulkier cargoes from space.

The tether was to be deployed from the spacecraft and gradually unwound, putting the capsule into a lower orbit and swinging to provide momentum, before the re-entry capsule was released. It was to glide through the atmosphere for some 20 minutes and then a parachute was to be deployed.

However, the experiment went awry when the tether only unfolded to a length of 8.5 km after being released from the spacecraft orbiting around 300 km above the earth, a Mission Control spokesman said.

The tether deployed is half a millimetre thick and is made of Dyneema, which the ESA described as the world’s strongest fibre and is used by kite surfers. — AP

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