RTFA: http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/07/09/26/1015…
Moscow: An experiment that envisaged sending a parcel from space to Earth on a 30-kilometre tether fell short of its goal yesterday when the long fibre rope did not fully unwind, Russian Mission Control said.
The YES2 experiment was prepared by almost 500 students from all over Europe and put on board the Russian Foton-M3 unmanned spacecraft, which also carried other European Space Agency experiments.
It was intended to deliver a spherical capsule, called Fotino, attached to the end of the tether back to Earth - a relatively simple and cheap technology that could be used in the future to retrieve bulkier cargoes from space.
The tether was to be deployed from the spacecraft and gradually unwound, putting the capsule into a lower orbit and swinging to provide momentum, before the re-entry capsule was released.
The capsule was to glide through the atmosphere for some 20 minutes and then a parachute was to be deployed.
Wild space launch.
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