An artists conception of the spacecraft Cosmos 1 in flight reflecting the Earth is shown in this undated publicity photograph. The world's first solar-sail-powered spacecraft, Cosmos 1, which lifted off Tuesday night, failed to reach the planned orbit due to an engine failure in the carrier rocket. (Xinhua/AFP photo)

    MOSCOW, June 22 (Xinhuanet) -- The world's first solar-sail-powered spacecraft, Cosmos 1, which lifted off Tuesday night, failed to reach the planned orbit due to an engine failure in the carrier rocket, a Russian space official said Wednesday.

    Cosmos 1 was launched at 23:46 Moscow time (1946 GMT) Tuesday from a Russian submarine under the Barents Sea in an experiment to test a new means of interstellar flight. The spacecraft was expected to orbit the Earth once every 101 minutes and operate forat least a month.

    However, an unidentified official of Russia's space agency told the Interfax news agency that the solar sail spacecraft failed to reach the planned orbit on time due to an engine stall in the carrier rocket's first stage.

    "The failure apparently occurred on the 83rd second of the flight. Thus, it happened before the spacecraft separated from the carrier rocket," the official said.

    Experts are trying to establish contact with the spacecraft, Interfax said.

    A solar sail spacecraft propels itself by using the gentle pushfrom the continuous stream of light particles known as photons. Though gradual, the constant light pressure should allow a spacecraft to build up great speed over time and cover great distances.

    Such a craft would not have to carry chemical fuel to propel itself through space, and, according to advocates, would eventually achieve greater speed than a traditional spacecraft.     

    The joint US-Russian project cost 4 million US dollars in private funds, with the bulk of funding coming from US Cosmos Studios. Enditem