THE world’s first solar sail is due to be launched tomorrow from a Russian nuclear submarine in the Barents Sea, heralding a new era of space travel.

Cosmos 1 will be launched on a converted intercontinental ballistic missile and, once in orbit, will unfurl eight ultra-thin triangular sails, each about 14 metres (45ft) long, in a windmill formation.

The private US-Russian consortium that developed the craft said that photons, or light particles, bouncing off the reflective sails will propel it.

If successful, the mission will be as significant a milestone for space exploration as the invention of the fabric sail was for travel on Earth.

Solar sails could replace rockets on some spacecraft within a decade and, with a boost from a satellite-based laser, reach Pluto within two years and Alpha Centauri, the closest star to Earth, within 1,000.

Louis Friedman, the executive director of the Planetary Society, a private group which spearheaded the project, said: “The thing about solar sailing is that you don’t need to carry fuel. The real hope is that it becomes a way to travel between planets. And this is the only technology that leads in the long range to interstellar flight.”

The project also highlights the growing role played by the private sector in space exploration, once the exclusive preserve of government agencies.

Dr Friedman was in charge of developing solar sails for Nasa in the 1970s, and worked on a project to use the technology to intercept Halley’s Comet. But it was shelved because it was too expensive and deemed ahead of its time.

“Government agencies can afford it, but they get too ambitious, so projects become more expensive,” he said. “Then no one wants to take the risk.”

Dr Friedman left the agency and teamed up with Carl Sagan, a Nasa conslutant and popular astronomer, in 1979 to found the Planetary Society, the world’s largest non-profit, non-governmental space advocacy group.

The $4 million (£2.2 million) Cosmos 1 project was funded by Cosmos Studios, which was founded by Ann Druyan, Dr Sagan’s widow, and produces science-based films and DVDs. The spacecraft was built under contract by Russia’s Lavochkin Association and Space Re- search Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Data from the mission will be shared internationally, and if it succeeds, Nasa, the European Space Agency and others are expected to launch cosmic sails within a decade.

Solar sailing has been envisioned since the early 20th Century, but became possible only in the past ten years thanks to the development of super-lightweight materials.

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