WASHINGTON, June 22 (RIA Novosti, Arkady Orlov) - The U.S. team working on the Cosmos-1 project said two tracking stations registered a very weak signal from the satellite Tuesday, just hours after the launch.
Tracking stations in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in Russia's Far East and a portable station in Majuro on the Marshall Islands tracked the signals, according to an official statement by the U.S. Planetary Society, a participant in the Cosmos-1 project.
The Czech Panska Ves station has also reported about signals from the spacecraft, the statement said.
If confirmed, this means that Cosmos-1 has reached orbit. The United States will continue following the telemetric sessions to establish the position of Cosmos-1, the society said.
Jim Cantrell, the manager of the Cosmos-1 mission, and Bruce Murray, the chairman of the board of the Planetary Society (based in Pasadena, California), said the signal detected by the three tracking stations indicated that Cosmos-1 had entered circumterrestrial orbit, although the orbit could be a different one than was originally intended.
