Cosmos 2 Spacecraft

Sometime within the next few weeks NASA Ames Research Centre plans to launch a "nano-sail" as a piggy-back payload on the Falcon launch vehicle – a private booster designed and built by Planetary Society Board Member Elon Musk's SpaceX corporation. This small sail, developed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Centre (MSFC), would test atmospheric drag on the sail, but will not be making a controlled flight under sunlight pressure, which is the goal of Cosmos 2.

Missions by the US non-profit Planetary Society to test solar sail technology failed in 2001 and 2005, because the rockets needed to get them into space malfunctioned. Now they look set for a comeback as early as 29 July, when a tiny NASA spacecraft called NanoSail-D is scheduled to go into Earth orbit.