Russian probe engines crap out on way to Mars Russia's fourth attempt to reach Mars has run into trouble and is now stuck in orbit around Earth. Phobos-Grunt, which launched successfully last night, managed to make it into orbit, but has failed to fire its engines to get it started on its journey to Mars. The craft – Фобос-Грунт, or Phobos-Grunt ("grunt" means "soil" in …
It must be both frustrating and disappointing to have this happen, just as with Beagle, conceived by a group of British academics headed by Professor Colin Pillinger of the Open University.
Let's hope this type of rocket failure doesn't happen on a Space Station trip - everyone is depending on them.
At least the Beagle had a decent name, Beagle 2 was named after HMS Beagle, which twice carried Charles Darwin during expeditions - that was when Britain had a real Navy.
I'd be interested to know how much of the budget for this sort of space mission is R&D, and how much is for building and launching the thing. In other words, if it fails because of a build problem, how much would it cost to build and launch another one (which might involve waiting for another suitable alignment of the planets a year or so later)?
(Gruble = gigaruble, obviously, even though it sounds like a small copper coin used by mediaeval serfs.)
Fourth attempt? Mars-1 to Mars-7, Fobos-1 and 2, Mars-96 and quite a few others that were stranded in parking orbit and given some "Kosmos" or "Sputnik" designation. A few others, like the two M-69 orbiters, never made it to orbit.
Mars-5 was essentially successful, it went into orbit in 1973 and carried out all its mission tasks (photography and numerous spectroscopic and space-plasma and cosmic-ray experiments). Fobos-2 entered orbit and performed some of its tasks, but failed before it could rendezvous with Phobos.
Let's not forget that Russia's Soyuz/Fregat technology sent Mars Express to its destination. Mars Express consists of a communications satellite refitted with the backup copies of Mars-96's experiments. So there is considerable Russian involvement of the "pay no attention to that man behind the curtain" style.
Fobos-Grunt failed to achieve three-axis orientation lock on the Sun and a bright star. Those sensors are redundant, so this may be a software glitch. It will be in range of special telemetry and telecommand stations in Baikonur Wednesday night, and they may be able to get a full set of housekeeping telemetry then. There is a small chance the mission can be resumed, if this is just a fixable software state.
just love the sputnik's name. with all experience of the russian space industry in translating english, don't the english-speaking audience see anything exceptively strange in it? either it has absolutely no connection with mars, or - the russians have a "просрать" idiom = lit. "to shit/grunt smth. away". why the hell do russians/chinese need phobos exactly now? just ask yourself yourself.
well unlike old and spent satellites this one is loaded with toxic fuel.. I wonder how they can control its eventual descent since they can only receive comms one way (it they just get telemetry info and not sent commands)..if there's a chance that it will impact a city or something can they shoot it down once it reaches the atmosphere? maybe call up the good US of A and offer a target practice for the airborne laser perhaps?
just keep the factory environment sane. once id mentioned there must be no journalists with their airing the video before the start, neither at the russian plant, nor in american. you don't expect anyone to poke nose into maternity hospital during delivery, do you? please space builders say you don't. otherwise your projects are at risk, too. i'll be damned if i don't know what im talking about.
Actually, the US Army has nothing to do with it - It's the US Navy that would do the shooting down, and they've got proven skills in the 'shooting down satelites' department.
But the US needn't be the only call - the Spanish bought the same gear for their top-end air-defence warships, as did the Japanese.
http://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2008/02/25/the-satellite-shootdown-behind-the-scenes
What about the Planetary Society LIFE experiment ? Spare a thought for the hardy Tardigrades, Conan the Bacterium, and all the other microscopic astronauts attempting to survive the journey ?
Come on you Russians, where's the guy from Armageddon bashing it with a wrench shouting "this is how we fix things on Russian Space Station!" ?
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