A privately funded spacecraft launched from a Russian submarine
and intended to deploy a solar sail into Earth's orbit was lost
to controllers shortly after takeoff, but late Tuesday engineers
tracking Cosmos 1 said the craft might have been found.
Engineers in Moscow and Pasadena poring through reams of
tracking data said eight hours after the launch, which took
place in the Barents Sea, that they might have detected faint
signals from the craft indicating that it was in space, but not
in its intended orbit. Data from four separate tracking stations
-- buried under a large amount of background noise -- "appears
to indicate a spacecraft signal," the Planetary Society said in
a late-night statement released in Pasadena, where the society
is based. "It seems like it is in orbit," said David Betts,
director of projects for the society. "The most consistent story
is that it made its orbit and is transmitting. That's great
news." Cosmos 1 -- a $4-million spacecraft powered only by the
sun's rays -- is regarded by