As part of the project, an uncrewed solar-sail spacecraft named Cosmos 1 was launched into space at 19:46:09 UTC (15:46:09 EDT) on 21 June 2005 from the submarine Borisoglebsk in the Barents Sea.

The Planetary Society planned to raise another US$4 million for Cosmos 2, a reimplementation of the experiment provisionally to be launched on a Soyuz resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS).

[3] However, advances in technology and the greater availability of lower-mass piggyback slots on more launch vehicles led to a redesign similar to NanoSail-D, called LightSail-1, announced in November 2009.

The spacecraft had a mass of 100 kg (220 lb) and consisted of eight triangular sail blades, which would be deployed from a central hub after launch by the inflating of structural tubes.

"Cosmos 1 might boost its orbit 50 to 100 km (31 to 62 mi) over the expected 30-day life of the mission", said Louis Friedman of The Planetary Society.

At that speed, a craft would reach Pluto, a very distant dwarf planet in the Solar System, in less than 5 years,[7] although in practice the acceleration of a sail drops dramatically as the spacecraft gets farther from the Sun.