According to the Russian state-owned news agency RIA Novosti, Russia’s space research program in the coming decades will be driven by landing planetary missions. “We’ve found our direction, our niche,” said the director of the Institute of Space Research at the Russian Academy of Sciences Lev Zelyony. Russia’s plan consists of sending a succession of five unmanned probes to the [...]
Post Tagged with: “Phobos”
Mothership and her Hedgehogs: New Concept for Exploring Phobos
Exploring the low gravity environment of small celestial objects has always posed a challenge to researchers. Now, a collaboration among engineers at Stanford, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has developed a new concept. The idea was designed with exploration of the Martian moon Phobos in mind, and uses an autonomous robotic system named the Phobos [...]
Russia to Join ExoMars in 2013
The Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) and the European Space Agency (ESA) are going to sign an agreement in the first quarter of 2013 on Russia’s participation in the European ExoMars mission. “The agreement will be signed. We are starting financing this project,” Roscomos head Vladimir Popovkin told Izvestia newspaper on December 26. Popovkin discussed Russia’s readiness to join the [...]
The Lost Phobos Grunt: An Overview
With the December 10 declaration by a senior Russian space official that officially pronounced the Phobos-Grunt lost, attention is being shifted to the probe’s inevitable atmospheric reentry. Below is a timeline of events from the launch of the probe to the December 10 announcement: November 9, 2011– The Phobos-Grunt is successfully launched atop a two-stage Zenit rocket from Site 45 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome [...]
The Continuing Uncertainty of Phobos-Grunt
It has been a month since Phobos-Grunt became stranded in its parking orbit around the Earth, and in spite of efforts by ground controllers with the support of the European Space Agency and NASA, the fate of the spacecraft has remained uncertain. That uncertainty is underscored by the lack of contact and an accurate understanding of the spacecraft’s exact operating [...]
Contact With Phobos Grunt Unreliable
Only intermittent contact has been possible with the ailing Phobos-Grunt probe, despite promising news on November 23rd that a carrier signal had been received from the probe by an ESA tracking station in Perth, Australia. Although the Perth station was subsequently upgraded with an expanded antenna range to enable it to receive telemetry from the probe, controllers in both Perth [...]
ESA Tracking Station Receives Signal from Phobos Grunt
On November 22, at 20:25 GMT, an ESA tracking station in Perth, Australia made successful contact with the Phobos Grunt probe. “We have sent a command, and the probe has replied,” said an ESA spokesperson in Darmstadt, Germany, “Now it is clear that the Phobos Grunt is alive.” Although the contact consisted only of the reception of a radio signal [...]
Still Out of Contact, Phobos-Grunt Fuel, Mass, and Radioactive Cobalt Pose Reentry Concerns
As of 21:00 GMT November 13th, ground controllers in Baikonur have been unable to reestablish communications with the ailing Phobos-Grunt probe, despite efforts to contact the probe overnight on November 11th and during the day on November 12th. There are growing concerns that if the probe were to reenter the atmosphere over a populated area, its 10 tons of hydrazine could [...]
Phobos-Grunt Probe Adds Chapter to Russian Space Disaster Series
It was supposed to be a great Russian triumph, possibly the most challenging unmanned mission to Mars ever and a revival of Russia’s attempts to reach the Red Planet. But all expectations turned bitter shortly after the November 8 launch, when the Phobos-Grunt’s booster failed to fire. Now there are increasing fears that the 15-ton Phobos-Grunt probe carrying 7 tons [...]
Infographic: The Russian Phobos-Grunt Mars Probe Mission
The Phobos-Grunt probe launched by Roscosmos on November 9 and since plagued with technical difficulties was intended to procure samples from the surface of Mars moon Phobos. The infographic below describes the original mission. Source: SPACE.com: All about our solar system, outer space and exploration Staff WritersMore Posts
