Status of Solar Spacecraft Unknown

The status of Cosmos 1, the first solar-powered spacecraft, was unknown Wednesday afternoon following conflicting reports saying that either the ship was destroyed on liftoff, or is in a much closer orbit to Earth than planned.

Signals believed to have come from the craft have been detected in the Marshall Islands and in Russia, although confirmation was not available. U.S. Strategic Command in Nebraska is working with mission officials in an attempt to locate Cosmos 1.

The craft, which is powered by light from the sun, is designed to test the feasibility of solar sail technology for space flight.

Scientists predict that photons would push on the ultra-thin sheets of Mylar, propelling it through space. The hope is that this technology will speed up space travel, while also making it considerably cheaper.

The craft was launched on a Russian rocket late Tuesday afternoon; however, no signals were received when it was expected to enter orbit. According to the Russian space agency Roskosmos, 83 seconds into the flight one of the engines on the rocket failed.

"That the weak signals were recorded at the expected times of spacecraft passes over the ground stations is encouraging, but in no way are they conclusive enough for us to be sure that they came from Cosmos 1 working in orbit," project director Louis Friedman said in a statement on the Planetary Society Web site early Wednesday.

Both the Planetary Society, the group responsible for the mission, and Roskosmos would not rule out the solar craft had just entered a different orbit than expected.

Cosmos 1 carries a $4 million price tag, and is about 10 stories high. Although the mission is not federally funded, officials said they plan to share results with NASA if and when the mission completes.