. )
A Zenit rocket launches into space carrying Russia's Phobos-Grunt spacecraft toward Mars on a mission to collect samples of the Martian moon Phobos. Liftoff occured on Nov. 9, 2011 Local Time from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan (Nov. 8 EST).
Image: German Aerospace Center (DLR)
Russian engineers are scrambling to try to save the Phobos-Grunt spacecraft, which was launched Tuesday (Nov. 8) but has failed to head toward Mars as planned.
The spacecraft appears to be stuck in Earth orbit instead, after its engine failed to ignite to send the probe on a trajectory to the Red Planet. Now Russian Space Agency officials say they have two weeks to figure out how to start up Phobos-Grunt's thrusters before the spacecraft is lost completely.
"They seem to be in a stable and relatively long-lived situation, so they have the most precious spaceflight resource -- TIME -- to figure out and implement an alternate command scheme," space consultant James Oberg, a former NASA space shuttle mission control engineer, told SPACE.com in an email. "It looks like they will try an orbit raise burn about 17:16 GMT [12:16 EST] today."
The Phobos-Grunt spacecraft launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 3:16 p.m. EST (2016 GMT) Tuesday, and separated from its Zenit rocket properly, Russian officials said. However, the spacecraft's own engine then failed to burn when it was supposed to. Engineers hope that the issue might be a software program that could be fixed by rebooting.
"I think the mission is eminently rescue-able, depending of course on the root cause of the problem," Obserg wrote. "If it's software, which is perhaps the most likely problem, there's time to load existing or thrown-together contingency commands."
The $163 million Phobos-Grunt spacecraft is designed to land on Mars' moon Phobos, collect rock samples, and return them to Earth. The mission was intended to restore glory to Russia's Mars exploration program after three previous spacecraft intended to visit the Red Planet failed.
"The go-for-broke nature of this mission, aiming for the first Russian deep space success in a quarter century, always looked awfully bold, and now looks just plain reckless -- whatever happens next," Oberg said.
See what we're tweeting about
11 Comments
Add CommentWell, lets see, they managed to launch FAR more humans into LEO than we have, with what, 3 fatalities? We'd be so lucky to be them...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisanyway，wish they could make through.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisget a life, doofuss
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIndeseo, be nice. Roofermann1 can spout nonsense if he wants. Neither your nor Roof's comments are relevant to the subject of the article.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf anyone can save this mission it's the Russians. They're geniuses in space exploration.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's all very high tech. A lot of our handy devices have come out of space exploration. But it's a lost cause. We now know that the probability of there ever being life on Mars is very small. Further missions, especially manned ones, will be a waste of resources. There's plenty of very interesting problems here on our planet to keep scientists busy for decades. And unless there are physical laws we don't know about, space travel ( Star Trek style ) is totally beyond our capability. So lets forget it. No more squandering of Earths valuable resources on lumps of lifeless rock.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLenedwin, is it really time to permanently put our heads down and stop wondering what's out there and stop exploring? Besides giving us an immense amount of information, a lot of applicable to our understanding of Earth itself, space exploration has given us much more than a lot of handy devices. Some have saved lives, such as a lot of the gear that modern fire fighters employ, and others have ushered in new technologies that have added billions if not trillions of dollars to our economy when added up over the years. As well, there may indeed be physical laws that we haven't fathomed yet. I find that quite likely while admitting that there are no guarantees that their discovery will lead to interstellar space travel. The study of how our universe and solar system was created and operates will be of great value if we are to learn more about the physical laws that govern the entire universe. A lot of what we discover will have some very practical applications that will more than pay for itself.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI did say that we have gleaned a great deal from the space programs. That gave us a kick start. But 99% of the technology in use today was developed outside the space industry. And we're not going to learn a thing about the Universe by sending missions to the planets. (Apparently our little corner of the Galaxy obeys Newtons well known Laws). That job is best done on Earth with instruments like the Hubble telescope and in CERN. That is where any unknown physical laws will be discovered. We have passed the point of practicality. The small amount of additional knowledge gained is not worth the resources spent.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes, maybe all these comments are true!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut, it's also true that NASA has no where to go. LERO (Low Earth Rubble Orbit) has been done.
Manned missions to Mars only shorten duration, raise costs and risks. What manned mission could run as long Opportunity?
Quizzle me that! Batman.
.
They think the fuel tank is blocking the low gain antenna. So, they can't command it from below. I wonder how long it will take them to realize there is a big fat space station up there with Russians in it that have an oblique view of it twice on every orbit. If you can't hit it with commands from the ground, try hitting it from the ISS. On multiple orbits you should get multiple angles of attack on it; you'd have a real good shot at hitting that antenna on one of them.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Soviet space program has actually had far greater casualties in their attempts to reach LEO. There's instances of dozens being killed on the ground due to faulty rockets.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this