ROSCOSMOS - Phobos-Grunt Mission poster.
Nov. 9, 2011
A robotic spacecraft to the Mars moon Phobos launched early on Wednesday has failed to reach a flying orbit after separation from the launch vehicle, the head of Russia’s Federal Space Agency said.
The Zenit-2 launch vehicle carrying the Phobos-Grunt probe lifted off from the Baikonur space center at 00.16 a.m. Moscow time (20:16 GMT on Tuesday). The spacecraft was supposed to use its own booster to reach the designated flying trajectory, but failed to do so.
Phobos-Grunt (on Celestia)
“It has been a tough night for us because we could not detect the spacecraft [after the separation],” Vladimir Popovkin said. “Now we know its coordinates and we found out that the [probe's] engine failed to start.”
“It is a complex trajectory, and the on-board computers could have simply failed to send a “switch on” command to the engine,” Popovkin said, adding that it is an emergency situation, which has been anticipated and could be corrected.
“We will attempt to reboot the program. The spacecraft is currently on a support orbit, the fuel tanks have not been jettisoned, and the fuel has not been spent,” he said.
According to Popovkin, the technicians have three days to start the on-board engine and put the probe on the designated trajectory before the batteries run out.
The ambitious Phobos-Grunt mission is aimed at bringing back soil samples from Phobos in 2014 to pave the way for the exploration of the Red Planet.
The $163-million spacecraft carries an array of 20 instruments designed to gather and transmit data from the vicinity of Mars and from the surface of Phobos.
The potential loss of the Phobos-Grunt probe could deliver another serious blow to the country’s space exploration program as Russia has previously failed several attempts to send unmanned spacecraft to Mars.
Russia has two weeks to put Mars probe back on track
Phobos-Grunt description
Engineers have up to two weeks to correct the path of a Russian probe bound for Mars, a top space official said on Wednesday.
The Phobos-Grunt probe launched from the Baikonur Space Center in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, but its engines failed to put it on course for the Red Planet.
The mission is Russia’s first foray into deep space since losing a Mars-bound lander in 1996.
The craft, designed to bring back rock and soil samples from the Martian moon Phobos, is currently stuck in a “support orbit.”
Vladimir Popovkin, the head of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos, said engineers had two weeks to re-start the probe's booster before its batteries ran out.
“A more thorough analysis of the orbit’s parameter and the supply of fuel onboard has shown that such commands must be delivered within two weeks,” Popovkin said, adding that the craft can stay in the orbit for up to four weeks.
The Phobos-Grunt is also carrying China’s first Mars satellite, Yinghuo-1.
For more informations about the Phobos-Grunt Mission, visit: http://www.federalspace.ru/main.php?id=375
Images, Text, Credits: Roscomos PAO / RIA Novosti.
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