Russia's Phobos-Grunt Mission

[PPI Brian]

The Russian Space Agency is undertaking a very ambitious sample and return mission to the Martian moon Phobos. They are carrying a Chinese orbiter named Yinghou-1 that will be released into a stable Mars orbit before the spacecraft lands on Phobos. They are also carrying an interesting experiment funded by the Planetary Society called Living Interplanetary Flight Experiment, or LIFE. They have packed some tough organisims into the return module to determine if organisims could have survived an interplanetary journey and possibly colonized earth. They planned on testing the viability of these organisims after the sample returned to earth. Unfortunately, every probe Russia has sent to Mars - 17 not including Phobos-Grunt - has failed. Following a picture perfect launch on November 8th all seemed well. Then something went wrong.

Phobos-Grunt was failed to locate her navigational stars so the engines didn't fire. The probe is now in a deteriorating orbit and the ground controllers are running out of time and battery power. If they fail to fix the software problems in time the fully fueled vehicle will fall back to earth in the next couple of weeks. If it can be rescued, the spacecraft is scheduled to reach Mars' orbit in September 2012 and land on Phobos in February 2013. The return vehicle, carrying up to 200 g of soil from Phobos, is expected to be back on Earth in August 2014.


http://www.youtube.com/v/I4P0L6NUV98

http://www.youtube.com/v/W0cUvK0Dgy8

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/space/news/russias-mars-mission-gets-stuck-in-earth-orbit-6554227

[Adriano]

This is phenomenal news... love it!

[PPI Tracy]

This is amazing.  They work and work for years, decades, on these space projects.  They try to plan for every possible scenario, every possible glitch.  Hope for the best yet plan for the worst.  Something usually goes wrong on these missions.  Sometimes they can solve it and sometimes, not.  The sometimes not is a VERY expensive and defeating mistake.  So much science opportunity gone to waste.  I just hope they can glean some great information from this.

Wow...that was an uplifting post, eh?   ::|

[PPI Brian]

The demise of the Phobos-Grunt mission will be a huge loss to the scientific community. Russian space agency officials are frantically trying to upload new software patch to the probe, but their attempts have been unsuccessful. NASA and ESA have offered to lend a hand, but the Russians aren't sure if it's a software of a hardware problem. If they can't revive the probe, it will fall out of orbit and cause quite a fireball. The vehicle weighs over 13 tons -- 10 tons of it is unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide.  :o

[PPI Tracy]

If they can't revive the probe, it will fall out of orbit and cause quite a fireball. The vehicle weighs over 13 tons -- 10 tons of it is unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide.  :o

Whoa......that would cause quite a dent in the fender.

[PPI Brian]

Here's an update on the Phobos-Grunt mission:

"All attempts to obtain telemetric information from the Phobos-Grunt probe and activate its command system have failed. The probe must be considered lost," Interfax quoted a source in the Russian space sector as saying.

The source said Russia's space agency would announce the failure of the mission in the next few days.

Heads up, everyone. As the old Buffalo Springfield song goes; "Stop. Hey what's that sound? Everybody look what's going' down."

[PPI Tim]

Ground control to major Tomski.  It looks like the Russians launch a turd into low orbit. I hope it doesn't kill anyone when it comes back.

[PPI Brian]

ESA managed to pick up a signal from the Phobos-Grunt vehicle. Here's the latest:

Russia scrambles to diagnose glitch on Phobos-Grunt

A European Space Agency tracking station in Australia was expected to contact Russia's Phobos-Grunt spacecraft at least two times Wednesday, one day after the site heard signals from the stranded probe for the first time in two weeks.

The Perth ground station has two opportunities Wednesday to contact Phobos Grunt. The passes begin at 2021 GMT (3:21 p.m. EST) and 2153 GMT (4:53 p.m. EST) and last seven and 10 minutes, respectively.

The tracking station heard from Phobos-Grunt on Tuesday, the first time a ground site established contact with the probe since it launched Nov. 8.

The Perth station transmitted telecommands provided by NPO Lavochkin, the mission's Russian contractor, according to ESA.

Perth's 49-foot dish was modified with a feedhorn antenna to transmit low-power signals over a wide swath of the sky. Engineers adjusted the signal strength because Phobos-Grunt's receiver was designed for low-power communications in deep space.

Phobos-Grunt is orbiting less than 200 miles above Earth, so conventional deep space communications antennas generate very powerful signals so close to Earth.

In a press release Wednesday, ESA said Perth was ideally positioned because Phobos-Grunt was in sunlight so its solar panels could produce electricity. Controllers are not sure if the craft's batteries are charging on the night side of its orbit.

"Owing to its very low altitude, it was expected that our station would only have Phobos-Grunt in view for six to ten minutes during each orbit, and the fast overhead pass introduced large variations in the signal frequency," said Wolfgang Hell, the Phobos-Grunt service manager at the European Space Operations Center in Darmstadt, Germany.

The Perth station commanded Phobos-Grunt's transmitter to switch on, and the ground receiver heard a signal from the probe.

European officials sent data to Russian mission controllers for analysis, according to ESA.

The 29,000-pound, truck-sized probe launched Nov. 8 on a Zenit rocket. After reaching low Earth orbit, the craft was supposed to fire twice to push itself out of Earth's gravity and on a course to Mars.

Neither engine firing occurred, and efforts to diagnose and resolve the problem repeatedly failed. Officials were not able to receive telemetry from the spacecraft.

Phobos-Grunt had a brief window to reach Mars when the planets were properly aligned to make the interplanetary journey possible.

Vladimir Popovkin, the head of Russia's space agency, said after launch the mission could be salvaged until early December. But many experts said the launch period has already expired, meaning Phobos-Grunt would have to wait until 2013 for another shot at Mars.

But that assumes engineers are able to regain control of the spacecraft and uplink fresh commands to fire its engines. Tuesday's brief contact did not produce telemetry to gain insight into the situation on-board the spacecraft, officials said Wednesday.

The $165 million mission was designed to land on Phobos, the largest moon of Mars, and return rock samples to Earth in 2014. http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1111/23pgupdate/

[PPI Karl]

Thanks for posting this.  I just saw this story earlier today, too. 

I feel so disappointed for them, even more so now, knowing that they've made some minor contact with the vehicle but still haven't gotten any useful telemetry from it.  It seems like it's taunting them with the hope it could still happen.  And, truthfully, I guess I do hope they can turn this around and still get Grunt-Phobos on its journey in time.  I was looking forward to following this mission.  Fingers crossed for a "Thanksgiving Day miracle." 

[PPI Brian]

Here's the latest on the status of the Phobos-Grunt spacecraft. It's prognosis is bleak:

Space agency ends attempt to contact Russian probe
By JIM HEINTZ, Associated Press

MOSCOW (AP) ? The European Space Agency said Friday it has abandoned efforts to contact a rogue Russian space probe, increasing the likelihood it will plunge to Earth.

The unmanned Phobos-Ground probe was to head to the Mars moon of Phobos on a 2 1/2-year mission to take soil samples and fly them back to Earth. But the probe became stuck in Earth orbit after its Nov. 9 launch and attempts to send commands that could propel it toward the Mars moon have been unsuccessful.

ESA said in a statement that although the agency has halted efforts to contact the probe, it will resume if any changes are reported by the Russian space agency.

A spokesman for the Paris-based ESA told The Associated Press that Russia was going to continue to try to contract the probe over the weekend; he spoke on condition he not be named. Russian space officials could not be reached for comment late Friday.

Russian deputy space chief Vitaly Davydov said last month that if the spacecraft is not sent to Mars, it could fall to Earth sometime between late December and late February.

The failed spacecraft is 13.2 metric tons (14.6 tons); most of that weight, about 11 metric tons (12 tons), is highly toxic fuel. Experts say that if the fuel has frozen, some could survive the plummet to Earth, but that if it is liquid it will likely combust from the heat of re-entering the atmosphere.

The mission was planned to reach Mars orbit next September and land on Phobos in February 2013.

Scientists hoped that studies of the Phobos soil would help solve the mystery of its origin and shed more light on the genesis of the solar system. Some believe that the crater-dented moon is an asteroid captured by Mars' gravity, while others think it's a piece of debris resulting from Mars' collision with another celestial object.

[PPI Brian]

International attempts to contact the Phobos Grunt probe stuck in low Earth orbit have failed. The probe will re-enter Earth's atmosphere very soon. Here's an update on the status of the spacecraft from Space.com:

Phobos Grunt "Dead in the Water"; Pieces Falling to Earth
by Leonard David

Russia?s troubled Phobos-Grunt spacecraft, which is stuck in low-Earth orbit due to an engine failure rather than on its way to Mars, appears to be doomed, with small pieces of the wayward probe already falling to Earth.

Flotsam from the stranded Mars spacecraft quickly re-entered Earth?s atmosphere and were reportedly listed in the space object catalog maintained by the United States Strategic Command.

According to Space.com sources, shedding of pieces from spacecraft and rocket bodies at such a low altitude is common. But since the altitude of Phobos-Grunt itself did not change after the two small objects fell from the vehicle, the fragments were likely not that significant.

Still, the news is not good for Phobos-Grunt. According to one analyst, "(T)he vehicle appears dead in the water."

A Fiery Demise

Phobos-Grunt was launched Nov. 8 on a mission to collect rock samples from the Mars moon Phobos. Shortly after launch, the spacecraft suffered a malfunction that stranded it in Earth orbit.

Despite repeated attempts, mission controllers have not been able to communicate with Phobos-Grunt.

Unless engineers can regain control of the spacecraft, the 14.6-ton (13.2 metric tons) probe is headed for an uncontrolled plunge into Earth?s atmosphere.

"I estimate that Phobos-Grunt will decay on Jan. 13, 2012, plus or minus eight days," said Ted Molczan of Toronto, a leader in the community of citizen satellite watchers.

After picking up a signal from the marooned probe Nov. 23 at a ground station in Australia, the European Space Agency (ESA) had been tracking Phobos-Grunt as part of a joint effort with the Russian Federal Space Agency.

Last week, however, ESA announced that, "in consultation and agreement with Phobos-Grunt mission managers" in Russia, they would end tracking support.

"Efforts in the past week to send commands to and receive data from the Russian Mars mission via ESA ground stations have not succeeded; no response has been seen from the satellite. ESA teams remain available to assist the Phobos-Grunt mission if indicated by any change in the situation," agency officials said in a statement.

Lessons Learned from Phobos-Grunt

There have been a number of lessons learned in trying to rescue Phobos-Grunt, said Wolfgang Hell, a service manager who is overseeing ESA support to Russia's main contractor on the Phobos-Grunt project. Hell is based at the European Space Operations Center in Darmstadt, Germany.

In a Space.com interview late last month, Hell said there were challenges beyond what ESA does in support of NASA missions. For one, NASA and ESA spacecraft are designed with interoperability in mind to make joint missions  a relatively straightforward process, he advised.

"That was not the case with this (Phobos-Grunt) mission. The uplink is completely private in terms of data structures and telecommand protocol," Hell said.

Also, early ideas about how to rescue Phobos-Grunt could have benefited from better knowledge of the true condition of the spacecraft.

"Maybe even imaging capabilities would have been useful," he said. "We were not absolutely certain that the solar arrays were deployed ? although I believe the Russians got telemetry initially stating that. But an optical verification that this is true would be nice."

Re-entering Earth's Atmosphere

Given the growing prospect that the sizable Phobos-Grunt will face an uncontrolled re-entry, there will undoubtedly be pieces of the spacecraft that survive, analysts agree.

For one, Phobos-Grunt's nose-cone-shaped descent vehicle - designed to bring back to Earth bits and pieces of Phobos, one of the two moons of Mars - was purposely fabricated to fall to Earth and land without the use of a parachute.

Also onboard Phobos-Grunt, and facing destruction, is the hitchhiking Chinese Mars orbiter, Yinghuo-1.

Due to the spacecraft's hefty load of toxic fuels, some concern has been raised about the probe's re-entry and the prospect that dangerous propellant could reach the Earth's surface.

Don't Lose Sleep

This concern has been addressed by Nicholas Johnson, NASA's chief scientist for orbital debris at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Johnson spoke to the issue Monday on "The Space Show," a popular radio and Internet program hosted by David Livingston. The orbital debris expert said that the head of the Russian space agency has explicitly said that the main propellant tanks for Phobos-Grunt are made of aluminum.

"Aluminum has a much lower melting temperature," Johnson said. "So with the statement by the Russians that the main propellant tanks are aluminum, that certainly would significantly reduce the chances of any harmful substance reaching the surface of the Earth."

Still, there is no reason to panic, Johnson said, because the Earth is roughly three-fourths water, and another large percentage of the land is relatively sparsely populated.

"I'm happy to report, since the beginning of the Space Age, there's been no report of anybody being harmed... by being hit by space debris re-entering."

On average, there is one known cataloged object that falls back to Earth every day, Johnson added.

"This is not a serious concern," he said. "I certainly wouldn't lose any sleep over it."

Leonard David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. He is a winner of this year's National Space Club Press Award and a past editor-in-chief of the National Space Society's Ad Astra and Space World magazines. He has written for Space.com since 1999.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45574868/ns/technology_and_science-space/t/phobos-grunt-dead-water-pieces-falling-earth/

[PPI Tracy]

Very very sad

[PPI Tim]

Where did it come down?

[PPI Brian]

It hasn't yet. No firm predictions at this time, but it's tumbling and fragmenting as it loses altitude.

[PPI Brian]

Here's the latest on Phobos  Grunt:

At least 10 days till hot Phobos-Grunt chunks rain down

Any fragments of the doomed Russian Mars probe Phobos-Grunt that don't burn up in the fiery explosion of its fuel tanks hitting the atmosphere are likely to fall to Earth on 15 January.

Russian Air and Space Defence Troops' spokesman Alexei Zolotukhin gave Russian news agency Itar-Tass the date but added that it might still change.

No landing site was given for the rogue fragments, but Zolotukhin said that as of today, the stalled spacecraft was in an orbit with a period of 88.57 minutes and an inclination of 51.41 degrees, and its apogee was now 224km while its perigee is 184km.

Since the probe got stuck in Earth's orbit instead of firing its engines to send it on its mission to Mars and Martian moon Phobos, there has been concern about what will happen when it drops unguided back through the atmosphere.

The craft is carrying around 7.5 metric tons of fuel, which is likely to help Phobos-Grunt to disintegrate as soon as it hits the atmosphere, but Russian space agency Roscosmos has warned that 20 to 30 pieces with a total weight of less than 200kg could survive to impact the surface.

Roscosmos has also said that it won't be possible to be certain about the time and place of any fragmentary impacts until within a few days of the probe's plunge through the atmosphere.

Specialists at the Russian Air and Space Defence Troops' space situation are currently monitoring the probe's changes and will be able to give a preliminary forecast of when and where the bits of debris will land once Phobos-Grunt drops out of orbit.

Zolotukhin said that information about orbit changes was being "provided for all the parties concerned".

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/01/04/phobos_grunt_fragments_january_15/

[PPI Tracy]

Most of the time, we have heard of space junk and other fragments just falling into the ocean. Let's hope that this is the case. 

[PPI Brian]

Thankfully three quarters of the Earth's surface is covered by water, so it will probably fall into the sea.

Here's another intriguing update on the doomed interplanetary probe:

Duff Russian Mars probe spotted flying in reverse

A veteran skywatcher has captured a video of the doomed Russian Martian space probe Phobos-Grunt that provides evidence of why ground control has only sporadically been able to contact it.

"The images show that the Phobos-Grunt is moving backwards, with the solar panels deployed but not lightened by the Sun," French astrophotogapher Thierry Legault writes on his website.

No sunlight on the panels, no electricity to the probe; no electricity to the probe, no communication with the ground, it appears.



Legault's remarkable video clearly shows Phobos-Grunt in reverse, with the solar panels deployed, but in darkness.

According to Legault, the probe shows no signs of tumbling, his evidence being a video he took a day before the one he provides on his website, which shows Phobos-Grunt in a similar orientation.

After a successful launch and orbital insertion on November 9 of last year, Phobos-Grunt failed to fire the engines that were to take it to the Red Planet. Now, Larault writes, "Phobos-Grunt is out of control and its atmospheric reentry is currently scheduled for mid-January," a reference to reports that the failed Mars mission should rain hot chunks of itself onto terra firma on or around January 15. ?

Bootnote
Legault's astrophotography has captured a number of exceptional images, including solar transits of the space shuttle Atlantis and Hubble Space Telescope in May 2009 and Atlantis and the ISS in May 2010. The Reg recommends that all devotees of space exploration take a moment to examine his online gallery.