Moscow – Forget e-mail. How about space mail? In an experiment combining elements of a package delivery service, the sport of kite surfing and a REALLY big fishing reel, Russian and European engineers sought on Tuesday to pioneer a technology that could be used in the future to retrieve cargo from space.
The experiment involving a 19-mile, super-strength tether hit a glitch, however, when the line failed to unwind fully, but Russian Mission Control said it hopes to salvage the test by recalculating the landing capsule’s orbit.
“Even a fishing line could get stuck sometimes,” Mission Control spokesman Valery Lyndin told The Associated Press.
The second Young Engineers Satellite, whose preparation involved nearly 500 university students from Europe, Japan, North America and Australia, was launched into orbit Sept. 14 on a Russian-built Foton-M3 spacecraft with other European Space Agency experiments.
The goal of the YES2 experiment was to deliver Fotino – a 12-pound reddish spherical capsule the size of a beach ball – to Earth with the help of a long tether made of a substance the European Space Agency described as the world’s strongest fiber.
In the experiment, the Fotino, held in a metal brace by straps, was to be shot out from the Foton-M3 spacecraft with springs as the tether gradually unwound, swinging the capsule forward into a lower orbit about 18 miles below.
About 2 1/2 hours later, after gravity takes firm hold and the entire unit swings in a vertical position below the spacecraft, the Fotino is then released from its straps and glides through the atmosphere for about 20 minutes before a parachute deploys and the sphere bumps to a landing in the steppes of Kazakhstan.
