Moscow (Russia) - With the miniature satellites "Mayak", Russian space engineers wanted to ignite a temporary "star" at the night sky and thus test a sort of shroud for satellites to avoid space scrap (as I reported). Now the responsible persons have announced the failure of the prototype.
Originally already planned for 2016, "Mayak" should start on board of a Soyuz 2.1v on the 14th of July 2017 from the Kosmodrom in Baykonur, according to project managers from the Moscow State Mechanical Engineering University (MAMI), who successfully completed the project with a Crowdfunding participation of 30,000 US dollars.
At an altitude of about 600 kilometers, the microsatellite, which is about to be shoe-box-sized, should unfold a 16-square-meter, tetrahedron-shaped "parachute" reflecting the sun's rays with which the satellite should be drawn back into the earth's atmosphere. In this way, the mini-satellite would have become a "new star" and at the same time one of the brightest objects in the sky. With the satellite, the scientists wanted to show a system developed by them, which is to send the descended satellites quickly and purposefully into the atmosphere.
Now the project manager Alexander Shayenko told the news agency TASS that the screen had apparently not developed due to a technical or design error. Even a damage of the satellite during the start can not be excluded.
Whether the project is being followed is still uncertain.