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Old November 13th, 2011 #1
Mike in Denver
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Default Track the Russian spacecraft

This Russian spacecraft is likely to hit Earth, nobody knows, but sometime soon. It's called Phobos-Grunt. Yes, that's Grunt.

You can track it here: http://www.n2yo.com/?s=37872 Takes a while to load. You'll be looking at a simple map of the US for a while. Then the map will change to a tracking map of the spacecraft.

This spacecraft is really toxic.

Mike
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Old November 13th, 2011 #2
Mike in Denver
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If you use the controls to move up two clicks, you can see the future and past orbit about an orbit in both directions.

Mike
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Old November 13th, 2011 #3
Steve B
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike in Denver View Post
This Russian spacecraft is likely to hit Earth, nobody knows, but sometime soon. It's called Phobos-Grunt. Yes, that's Grunt.

You can track it here: http://www.n2yo.com/?s=37872 Takes a while to load. You'll be looking at a simple map of the US for a while. Then the map will change to a tracking map of the spacecraft.

This spacecraft is really toxic.

Mike
Jeezus, it looks like it's going to come down over Tel aviv.

 
Old November 13th, 2011 #4
Leonard Rouse
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Those beanies shall protect them.
 
Old November 13th, 2011 #5
vened
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike in Denver View Post
It's called Phobos-Grunt. Yes, that's Grunt.
Mike

'grunt' transcribed from Russian 'грунт' (soil)

http://translate.google.com/#ru|en|%...83%D0%BD%D1%82
 
Old November 14th, 2011 #6
Steve B
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According to scientists the grunt is the largest and most sophisticated interplanetary probe ever launched. It's mission is to established orbit around Mars, take pictures for a few months, separate it self from a Chinese Mars orbiter that it is carrying and then land on Phobos, dig up soil and rock samples then blast off back to Earth. A series of technical and engineering marvels..had it worked. Now it's a flying piece of toxic junk awaiting an early earthly return just as soon as gravity starts kicking in, its main rocket engines having failed to ignite and the Russians unable to communicate with it. NASA says it will come down in mid to late December who knows where.

But experts like James Oberg, a NASA veteran who now works as a space consultant, think the fuel could freeze, surviving the fiery re-entry and causing an environmental disaster on impact.

He said the probe would become 'the most toxic falling satellite ever', adding: 'What was billed as the heaviest interplanetary probe ever may become one of the heaviest space derelicts to ever fall back to Earth out of control, an unenviable record.'









http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...re-begins.html

Last edited by Steve B; November 14th, 2011 at 02:42 PM.
 
Old November 23rd, 2011 #7
Steve B
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Default Europeans make contact with Russian dud

Quote:
The European Space Agency reported Wednesday that a ground station in Australia has re-established contact with Russia's Phobos-Grunt probe, two weeks after a mysterious post-launch glitch.

The report sparked a glimmer of hope for a mission that Russian officials were close to giving up on.

The $170 million Phobos-Grunt ("Phobos-Soil") mission was designed to land on Phobos, the larger of Mars' two moons, scoop up a soil sample and return it to Earth. The spacecraft is also carrying China's first interplanetary probe, Yinghuo 1, which is supposed to be dropped off in Martian orbit.

Before its Nov. 9 launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the Phobos-Grunt mission was heralded as a sign of Russia's resurgence in interplanetary exploration.

The 13-ton spacecraft reached Earth orbit but did not fire its engines as scheduled to start its months-long cruise toward the Red Planet. Russian controllers have been trying to contact the probe for days, aided by ESA as well as NASA.

On Tuesday, the Interfax news agency quoted Russia's deputy space chief, Vitaly Davydov, as saying that "chances to accomplish the mission are very slim." Then ESA said its tracking station in Perth, Australia, made contact with the probe late Tuesday (around 20:25 GMT, or 3:25 p.m. ET).

ESA explained on its website that the job was particularly challenging because it was hard to get a precise fix on the spacecraft for a narrow-beam transmission, and because Phobos-Grunt's antenna was optimized to receive low-power transmissions in deep space.

"In the past few days, ESA's Perth dish was modified by the addition of a 'feedhorn' antenna at the side of the main dish so as to transmit very low-power signals over a wide angle in the hopes of triggering a response from the satellite," the space agency said.

The response came in the form of confirmation from the probe that it had executed commands to switch on its transmitter. Additional contact opportunities are available from Australia on a twice-daily basis.

"ESA teams are working closely with engineers in Russia to determine how best to maintain communication with the spacecraft," the agency said.

Now what?
It's not clear what options are still available for continuing Phobos-Grunt's mission. Some reports from Russia have suggested that the opportunity for a round trip to Phobos and back has been lost. Davydov, however, said Russian engineers had until the end of the month to fix the probe's engines and send it on a path to Phobos.

Russian scientists could fix the problem if the probe failed because of a software flaw, but some experts think that the failure was rooted in hardware that's difficult to fix.

Even if Phobos-Grunt can no longer execute its sample return mission, it could still conceivably take on a one-way trip to Mars and its moon, or head for a different destination, such as the moon or an asteroid.

If the mission fails, that could affect Russia's priorities for space research. The Russian space agency would more likely focus on moon research instead of studying Mars, Davydov said.

Davydov said that if engineers can't take control of the spacecraft, it could crash to Earth sometime between late December and late February. The site of the crash cannot be established more than a day in advance, he said.

"If you calculate the probability of it hitting somebody on the head, it is close to zero," he said.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45413483/#.Ts1dslYpM6F


Meanwhile NASA has a Mars probe set for launch this month called the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL). Its mission should it decide to accept it is to assess whether Mars is, or ever was, capable of supporting microbial life. It also contains an minivan sized 1 ton rover(called Curiosity) that is the largest thus far of all of the exploratory vehicles that have landed on the red planet.




Curiosity, assuming everything goes according to plan, will touch down at Mars Gale crater.






The rover will be lowered to the ground using a sky crane that works well in computer simulations but in reality has never been tried before on any interplanetary space missions.



Total cost: 2.5 billion.
 
Old November 23rd, 2011 #8
Steve B
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Animation vid of what the Mars Science Laboratory is supposed to do.


 
Old January 15th, 2012 #9
Mike in Denver
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Looks like it's coming down today.

"Russian space probe to crash to Earth within hours"

http://enews.earthlink.net/article/t...3-11b74fb670a8

Mike

Edit: The link to track the spacecraft (first post above) is unavailable. Probably too much traffic.
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Last edited by Mike in Denver; January 15th, 2012 at 02:05 PM.
 
Old January 15th, 2012 #10
Mike in Denver
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I think it's down. I finally managed to get into the tracking site. There are no orbits shown, just a symbol of the spacecraft, stationary in the South Pacific.

Mike
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Old January 15th, 2012 #11
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Jerusalem Post ticker is reporting it down.....

And the US/Israel Missile Test Drill that had a big chances of going live against Iran has been cancelled.

http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=253691
 
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