Phobos-Grunt Options

[tedstryk]

In Astronomy's February issue, they report that Russia has approved funding for the Phobos-Grunt mission. Design work has gone on since 1997, and the new design is scaled down to fly an a Soyuz rocket instead of the larger Proton. The main purpose is similar to Phobos-2, with the addition of a sample return. Also being discussed is the possibility of it carrying a few "meteorological stations" fof Mars itself. Generally, I have written this mission off as "never going to happen," but with the new Russian alliance with ESA, I wonder if they might be able to actually fly this thing. Also, with Putin's increasingly Soviet-style leadership, and with the likelyhood of lunar missions from China and India, Russian pride might drive this mission. If so, I have a concern. This mission sounds really, really ambitious. And the Russians have never even sent a fully successful Mars orbiter, and that is when they launched them in pairs or triplets. Still, if the mission flies, even if it doesn't bring back Phobos soil it might obtain some interesting results. Here is ESA's Phobos-Grunt page:
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/ESA_Permanent_...IJFW4QWD_0.html

Also, ESA has another page on potential Russian programs, although this seem to be nothing but pipe dreams at the moment. Would be a cool mission though.

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/ESA_Permanent_...0LFW4QWD_0.html

And also a page on the only partially realized current Russian project, its program to put instruments on other's spacecraft, such as HEND on Odyssey.

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/ESA_Permanent_...HMFW4QWD_0.html

[SFJCody]

There's a pdf document on these speculative missions here:


RussianProgram

[SFJCody]

About the project

Phobos-Grunt scheme of expedition

Phobos Grunt vehicle

MAIN BELT ASTEROID MISSIONS WITH LOW THRUST AND GRAVITY ASSIST OF MARS


Марс-Фобос-Грунт

[tedstryk]

That is some pretty interesting stuff. Back in the 80's, when our planetary program (other than already flying projects like Viking, Voyager, PVO, and ICE) wasn't flying any new spacecraft, the Soviets were the only major game in town. They spent the early part of the decade studying Venus (including the landers and the balloons), contributed a major component of the Halley flotilla, and then went to Mars with the Phobos mission. The Phobos spacecraft were the first of a new plan for exploration that included missions very similar to the Fortuna mission in that literature. They included balloons, rovers, and orbiters for Mars, and, yes, Phobos-Grunt (a much more sophisticated version). There was also an advanced Venera program. There was a great article sometime in 1988 in Astronomy about it. Then, of course, after the first of these new missions launched (Phobos '88), the whole Soviet system crumbled. Mars '96 (Which would have been Mars '90 - the original Mars'96 plan was a veritable Battlestar Galactica with rovers, balloons, and landers) managed to peter along and make it to the launchpad but was unlucky enough to have a bad upper stage on its launch vehicle. Phobos-Grunt, scaled down to fly on a Soyuz instead of a larger Proton rocket, was the only mission for which real design work continued. They have periodically presented other missions, both on their websites and at conferences, such as Venera-D and various asteroid missions, but I think they are generally sales-pitches in hopes of international funding which would be needed to fly them. Phobos-Grunt is the only mission that the Russian parliament and Putin have actually agreed to fund. That is why I take it more seriously. Putin feels threatened by Bush's Moon-Mars plan, and a Phobos sample return mission in 2009 would be a great way to upstage MSL. Of course, one has to hope that Russian space technology has improved...This mission will have to be longer lived than previous Russian spacecraft. But it has great potential.

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

An interesting tidbit from Tony Reichhardt's News article in the December 15, 2005, issue of Nature:

"Russia's long-suffering space scientists had reason to celebrate last week as a generous funding increase was approved for the national space agency, giving hope to missions that have long been on hold.

[...]

"One such mission, called Phobos-Grunt, now seems to be on track to launch in 2009. It will head for the martian moon Phobos, where it will land and collect a soil sample before returning to Earth. The mission has been scaled down — it will use conventional propulsion and launch on a Soyuz rocket, instead of the more expensive Proton — but it should still manage to land 45 kilograms of scientific instrumentation on Phobos.

"Spacecraft engineers at the Moscow-based Lavochkin Association are laying plans for an ambitious mission called Luna-Glob, which would deliver an orbiter and a network of instruments to the Moon for geophysical studies. This mission would probably get funding only after Phobos-Grunt is well under way, says [Mikhail] Marov [of the Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics in Moscow]."

References:

Budget boost gets Russia back in the space game
Tony Reichhardt
Nature 438, 896 (2005)
doi:10.1038/438896b
Full Text

==================

At the risk of sounding curmudgeonly, I'll only say that I'll believe in this mission when I see it. I was at an International Astronautical Congress in Toulouse, France, a few years back when a presentation for this mission was given by individuals from the Moscow Aviation Insititute and the Lavochkin Association. None of the others present who heard the presentation believed it would ever happen, at least not without involvement from the U.S. or Europe. In fact, a few "western space professionals" laughed outright, and one said "they're [the Russians] just looking for outside support."

Having said that, I hope it does come off, given that the Aladdin concept never made the downselect in a couple of Discovery solicitations, and especially if Gulliver never gets selected as a future Discovery mission. Indeed, I think both Phobos and Deimos get short changed in the U.S. and European Mars exploration architectures.

This post has been edited by AlexBlackwell: Dec 14 2005, 07:38 PM

[ljk4-1]

Having said that, I hope it does come off, given that the Aladdin concept never made the downselect in a couple of Discovery solicitations, and especially if Gulliver never gets selected as a future Discovery mission.  Indeed, I think both Phobos and Deimos get short changed in the U.S. and European Mars exploration architectures.

Ah, Gulliver! The name of a relatively simple lander planned for Mars back in the 1960s that would have shot out sticky strings to pull in some surface samples for analysis.

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-life-03l.html

Question: Going on what we know about the Martian surface now and remembering the data from Viking, had Gulliver happened, would the scientists have concluded at the time that they did indeed find life on Mars?

[ElkGroveDan]

Let's hope they keep away from the Lipovitan-D.

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

Let's hope they keep away from the Lipovitan-D.

Or its variant - "Lilliputian-D"

[Decepticon]

I say they rename the probe Mars-Lipovitan-D04A

[Bob Shaw]

Ah, Gulliver!  The name of a relatively simple lander planned for Mars back in the 1960s that would have shot out sticky strings to pull in some surface samples for analysis.

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-life-03l.html

Question:  Going on what we know about the Martian surface now and remembering the data from Viking, had Gulliver happened, would the scientists have concluded at the time that they did indeed find life on Mars?

From what I can tell, Gulliver was slated to be one of the Advanced Mariner experiments - certainly, the illustration in Gatland's 'Unmanned Spaceflight' appears to be of the Philco Lander. And I doubt it'd have coped well in the search for life!

Bobn Shaw

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

The life detector on Gulliver was none other than Gilbert Levin's instrument -- so, had they flown that alone, there would certainly have been a tidal wave of "Life Found on Mars!" headlines that might have proven just a teensy bit premature.

[Toma B]

.......At the risk of sounding curmudgeonly, I'll only say that I'll believe in this mission when I see it.......

So it will be a scaled down version of "Phobos"...


I can still remember high expectations of that spacecraft...Mars orbiter, Phobos landing etc...
In the end; Phobos-1 was lost before it even reached Mars and Phobos-2 took "staggering amount of information including 38 images"...same basic design was again used on Mars-96 but it never had a chance to see Mars....
Russia (CCCP) has yet to score first successful mission to Mars...
As said above I'll believe it when I see it...
Wish them good luck anyway.

[Guest_Richard Trigaux_*]

I think that if the Russians are coming to an end of their economic difficulties and come back on stage for space exploration, everybody should be happy.

[tedstryk]

I think that if the Russians are coming to an end of their economic difficulties and come back on stage for space exploration, everybody should be happy.

I hope so. In the past, budgeted money has not been delivered...I hope hthey go through with this. It is a shame Phobos 2 did not return more images. One thing forgotten is that its main transmitter failed before arrival, so kind of like Galileo (though not as severe, Phobos-2 couldn't use compression like Galileo), Phobos 2 had great difficulty returning large data products.

[ljk4-1]

So it will be a scaled down version of "Phobos"...


I can still remember high expectations of that spacecraft...Mars orbiter, Phobos landing etc...
In the end; Phobos-1 was lost before it even reached Mars and Phobos-2 took "staggering amount of information including 38 images"...same basic design was again used on Mars-96 but it never had a chance to see Mars....   
Russia (CCCP) has yet to score first successful mission to Mars...
As said above I'll believe it when I see it...
Wish them good luck anyway.

While the Soviets never had a fully successful mission to Mars, they did have partial successes, and they did land the first spacecraft on the planet, even if they did all go bye-bye prematurely. Of course none of them returned nearly as much data and images as the US missions.

[TheChemist]

I think that if the Russians are coming to an end of their economic difficulties and come back on stage for space exploration, everybody should be happy.

Maybe when they 're done with their investments in the English premiership and F1, some money will be left for space exploration

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

While the Soviets never had a fully successful mission to Mars, they did have partial successes, and they did land the first spacecraft on the planet, even if they did all go bye-bye prematurely.  Of course none of them returned nearly as much data and images as the US missions.

To put it mildly, I think that's an understatement. I certainly do not want to engage in bashing the Russians -- they have some fairly top notch scientists -- but their data return via spacecraft from Mars has been much worse than "[not] nearly as much...as the US missions." I would venture a guess, without having done a bit by bit comparison, that Mars Express alone has returned more data than all Soviet/Russian Mars missions combined.

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

I think that if the Russians are coming to an end of their economic difficulties and come back on stage for space exploration, everybody should be happy.

I agree, and if/when I see hard evidence supporting this scenario, I promise to be happy. A notice in the press that some mission "seems to be on track to launch" four years from now doesn't get me too excited.

[ljk4-1]

To put it mildly, I think that's an understatement.  I certainly do not want to engage in bashing the Russians -- they have some fairly top notch scientists -- but their data return via spacecraft from Mars has been much worse than "[not] nearly as much...as the US missions."  I would venture a guess, without having done a bit by bit comparison, that Mars Express alone has returned more data than all Soviet/Russian Mars missions combined.

I may be wrong on this, but I remember reading that Soviet space philosophy when it came to robot deep space probes was to build them as best they could, but essentially "test" them in space. If they failed on the way, one simply pretended to the West that they never existed, learn from the mistakes if possible, and try to build a better one next time. The US view was build and test them to the max before sending them out.

This is one reason why the USSR had more launches and more failures than the US.

[tedstryk]

I may be wrong on this, but I remember reading that Soviet space philosophy when it came to robot deep space probes was to build them as best they could, but essentially "test" them in space.  If they failed on the way, one simply pretended to the West that they never existed, learn from the mistakes if possible, and try to build a better one next time.  The US view was build and test them to the max before sending them out.

This is one reason why the USSR had more launches and more failures than the US.

That and the fact that the cover up was considered possible (even if in the end it wasn't. For example, the Mars 4-7 mission had serious computer problems, and the scientists wanted to delay, but the powers that be ordered that it go ahead, with the idea that if one of the landers managed to erp back a bit of data before its problems killled it, it would be the last chance to beat Viking. Mars-6 did return descent data, but it was very limited, and most know for an false reading from the pump for the mass spectrometer that made them think there was Argon in the atmosphere.

[RNeuhaus]

I think that previously Russian has failed many missions due mainly to political factors rather than technical reasons. The Soviet's leaders had made a lot of pressure and unrealistic judgment on engineers and scientists to do anything almost impossible, hurry up all things because there were a space race against the U.S. of America. to anywhere: Moon, Venus and Mars.

Then, now the view on the space is somewhat more calm than before so anybody are not in hurry to send any spacecraft to the space as a race but rather as on self pace rate in which it will guarantee a much higher mission success rate.

Hope that Russian, in that time, will manage better the space exploration programs without any kind race with any nation of Earth...rather better with more international cooperation

Rodolfo

[JonClarke]

I may be wrong on this, but I remember reading that Soviet space philosophy when it came to robot deep space probes was to build them as best they could, but essentially "test" them in space.  If they failed on the way, one simply pretended to the West that they never existed, learn from the mistakes if possible, and try to build a better one next time.  The US view was build and test them to the max before sending them out.

This is one reason why the USSR had more launches and more failures than the US.

Don't know about the space environment test program but Moon, Mars and Venus landers were extensively tested on earth in extensive ground, drop and simulation chamber tests. It seems to have paid off with the venus landers but to with mars. Don't know why.

And yes Alex, you are a curmudgeon. I think they will pull it off. They are getting serious budget increases at last. And I don't think comparing Phobos 2 to ME is fair given that the design of ME 15 years more advanced - better compared with mariner 9 which returned lower quality and less diverse data but at lot more of it. If you are not excited by an annoucement that this mission is on track for 4 years i assume you are equaly unexcited by ML, which is also supposed to be on track for a launch 4 years from now.

Toma B: - you will find that Phobos 2 collected a lot more data than 38 pictures. There are at least 300 publications I can identify on this mission. As a sample return mission, there is no way that it can be considered a scaled down Phobos 2, given that that was did not involve sample return.

Ted: while the amount was erroneous, the interpretation of the Mars 6 lander MS data did rightly alert people to the possibility that Mars has above terrestrial proportions of Ar.

That said, the mission does scare me at bit. Hayabusa has shown how difficult small body sample return can be. I would like to see the Russians get a few more runs on the Mars board with some simple missions before trying something this ambitious. A criticism of their prevous Mars missions would be that (unlike with their lunar and venus probes) they did not iron out bugs with repeat missions but sent a succession of every more complex probes.


Jon

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

And yes Alex, you are a curmudgeon.  I think they will pull it off.  They are getting serious budget increases at last.

I sure hope you're right, Jon. Me, I've seen too many Russian "sales pitches" to be excited at this early juncture. Indeed, I've seen too many NASA "virtual slide show" missions that never left the PowerPoint file, too, and NASA has a much better track record over the past 10-15 years than the Russians!

And I don't think comparing Phobos 2 to ME is fair given that the design of ME 15 years more advanced - better compared with mariner 9 which returned lower quality and less diverse data but at lot more of it.  If you are not excited by an annoucement that this mission is on track for 4 years i assume you are equaly unexcited by ML, which is also supposed to be on track for a launch 4 years from now.

Now who's making the unfair comparisons, Jon?

At least MSL (I presume that's the mission you're referring to by "ML") has solicited and selected instruments. I'll concede, however, that that's no guarantee MSL will fly.

[edstrick]

The soviets and the Russians after them have had a severe problem with reliabilty in initial flights of series of spacecraft on lunar and planetary missions. After a series of sucesses and partial sucesses with the series-1 lunar missions (Luna 1 through 3, not including launch failures), they had sustained failures with the series-2 lunar series, Luna 4 through 8; before Luna 9 landed, 10-12 orbited and 13 landed.

The series 3 lunar missions started with the failure of a sample return mission (Luna 15, during Apollo 11), then succeeded with Luna 16, 2 Lunokhod rovers, 2 heavy lunar orbiters (who's science return seemed to be minimal) and 2 more successful sample returns (and 2 sample return missions that were reputedly damaged during landing attempts in the rough highlands south of Mare Crisium. On the whole, pretty successful.

Similarly, the one block-1 planetary launch and all the early series-2 planetary launches failed until Venera 4 in 1967, 5 & 6 in 69 probed the atmosphere, and finally Venera 7 landed and had a partially successful mission in 1971 (Venera 8 one opposition later was a complete success) All the series-2 Mars missions failed, though one that was launched as an engineering test after it missed the launch window to mars, Zond-3, did a successful lunar flyby. All the series-3 lander missions to Mars were failures, though the Mars 3 orbiter was a success, and the Mars 5 orbiter was a success that failed prematurely.

After failing to send missions to compete with Vikings at Mars in 75, the series-3 missions to Venus succeeded brilliantly. Venera 11 and 12 failed to turn on landed science after highly successful atmosphere descents, but 13 and 14 were full successes, 15 and 16 were successful radar orbiters (one had some problems), and Vega 1 and 2 venus landers and balloons were successful, and the Halley flyby missions were largely successful, though the imaging quality at the comet was fairly miserable (it did provide essential pathfinding targeting for Giotto).

The series-4 missions (2 Phobos missions and poor Mars 96, which was launched-to-death) failed, but the Phobos 2 mission was a substantial scientific success as a Mars orbiter before it failed during the Phobos orbit rendezvous operations. Then their budget failed.

[Toma B]

Toma B: - you will find that Phobos 2 collected a lot more data than 38 pictures.  There are at least 300 publications I can identify on this mission.  As a sample return mission, there is no way that it can be considered a scaled down Phobos 2, given that that was did not involve sample return.

I have said "In the end; Phobos-1 was lost before it even reached Mars and Phobos-2 took "staggering amount of information including 38 images"...same basic design was again used on Mars-96 but it never had a chance to see Mars...."
But it wasn't data it should have colected...it was Phobos explorer and it died before almost any Phobos science was done...right?
Anyway I wish them luck with new spacecraft, first one in 10 (or so ) years...

[Guest_Richard Trigaux_*]

I think that previously Russian has failed many missions due mainly to political factors rather than technical reasons. The Soviet's leaders had made a lot of pressure and unrealistic judgment on engineers and scientists to do anything almost impossible, hurry up all things because there were a space race against the U.S. of America. to anywhere: Moon, Venus and Mars.

Then, now the view on the space is somewhat more calm than before so anybody are not in hurry to send any spacecraft to the space as a race but rather as on self pace rate in which it will guarantee a much higher mission success rate.

Hope that Russian, in that time, will manage better the space exploration programs without any kind race with any nation of Earth...rather better with more international cooperation

Rodolfo

I Agree with all this.

[edstrick]

Toma B: "....But it wasn't data it should have colected...it was Phobos explorer and it died before almost any Phobos science was done...right?...."

Wrong. The Phobos mission hopper and landers were entirely phobos dedicated, but the main mission was targeted toward both Mars and Phobos. The early part of the In-orbit phase of the mission was in an eccentric orbit doing Mars science that could not be done later (especially fields and particles science) that could not be done as well from the more circular pre-rendezvour or the nearly circular rendezvous orbit. The thermal infrared Thermoscan and Near infrared mapping spectrometer data in particular was to continue after operations at Phobos had terminated.

[RNeuhaus]

After failing to send missions to compete with Vikings at Mars in 75, the series-3 missions to Venus succeeded brilliantly.  Venera 11 and 12 failed to turn on landed science after highly successful atmosphere descents, but 13 and 14 were full successes, 15 and 16 were successful radar orbiters (one had some problems), and Vega 1 and 2 venus landers and balloons were successful, and the Halley flyby missions were largely successful, though the imaging quality at the comet was fairly miserable (it did provide essential pathfinding targeting for Giotto).

The series-4 missions (2 Phobos missions and poor Mars 96, which was launched-to-death) failed, but the Phobos 2 mission was a substantial scientific success as a Mars orbiter before it failed during the Phobos orbit rendezvous operations.  Then their budget failed.

It is evident that the Soviet space's technology seems to be better suited for hot environment such as for Venus than for the cold environment ones of Mars. I seems funny that Soviet's technology is better suited for hot environment and its technology was so heavy that landing to Mars makes a lot more trouble than to Venus.

I seems that the more Soviet has tried, the Venus case with 18 missions (approximately) versus 8 missions to Mars (approximately). Long learning curve due to the Soviet leaders' pressure to accelerate the mission.

To land on Venus is easier than to Mars? Then to land on Phobos must be much easier than to Mars. As I was the witness of Hayabusa, the landing on Phobos needs a spaceship that travels very slow toward Phobos, slower than to Mars. The other obstacle, the Phobos shape is not symetrical and I am not sure if it rotates (slow or fast) or not. If it rotates, it would be even more difficult to land.

Rodolfo

[tedstryk]

"To land on Venus is easier than to Mars? Then to land on Phobos must be much easier than to Mars. "

Phobos is a whole other game...Venus is easier to land on than Mars in that you can exclusively use the atmosphere to break to a speed in which it is safe to land. That statement does not indicate that Venus is an easier place for a craft to operate - it is just the plunking it down that is simplified.

[edstrick]

Landing on Venus is "easy"... The US did it on the Zeroth try. Pioneer Venus multiprobe missions ended at impact. The large probe and one small probe went silent at impact, one small probe lasted about a second, and the third lasted some ?67? minutes before it FRIED. The small probes didn't drop their heat shields so their bottoms were kinda "armored".

The reason Mars is HARD to land on is the atmosphere. On the Moon, or Mercury (ignoring the large Delta-V velocity change to get there) all you need is throttlable rocket engines, doppler sensing radars to measure vertical and horizontal velocity and altitude, a not very smart computer, and landing legs. Terminal guidance helps in rough terrain.

On Venus, all you need is an atmosphere entry heat shield, and a parachute. If you want to still be transmitting when you land, a pressure-vessle and lots of insulation are recommended.

On Mars, you need everything you need at Venus to do atmosphere entry, and a double parachute system, supersonic drogue chute followed by a LARGE, probably supersonic main chute. That keeps you from making a small crater lined with shiny metal bits before you're well below the speed of sound.

But then, you have to switch over to an entirely separate, second landing system. Either you need a hard landing system like Pathfinder/MER, comparable to the Luna 9 and 13 systems on the Moon, or a Viking/MPL/Phoenix rocket-propulsion landing system comparable to Surveyor/Apollo/Luna-16-sample-return/Luna-17-Lunokhod. You can get by with dinky rockets or dinky fuel tanks at least, cause you are going hundreds of miles/hr when you light the engines, instead of thousands, but it's just as complicated as if there was no atmosphere.

To land on Mars is essentially twice as complicated as landing on Moon or Venus. It could be worse. Try landing on the top of Olympus Mons. You don't have time to deploy a chute. You'd have to do an atmosphere entry, slow down to something like Mach 2, and blow out plugs in the heat shield as you light engines, maybe while blowing off the backshield. Build the lander directly into the heatshield. Instead of 6 minutes of terror, you'd basically have 4. Yow!

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

Exactly the same problem applies for a human-sized lander (30-100 metric tons) ANYWHERE on Mars -- because a lander 64 times more massive than another of generally similar design will have only 16 times as much forward aeroshell area to brake it during entry.

This was the subject of Rob Manning's COMPLEX talk, which didn't make it into my final "Astronomy" article. No practical parachute design can be big enough to solve the problem; nor can high lift/drag aeroshells (like the "Ellipsled" proposed to aerocapture Neptune Orbiter, or even a winged vehicle) solve it.

The only possible solutions are (1) rocket engines capable of firing out the lander's bottom at supersonic speeds BEFORE it deploys its chute (as Ed suggests), or (2) a huge, 20-30 meter diameter decelerator capable of working at hypersonic speeds -- either rigid (in which case it must survive the heat of entry), or inflatable and deployed after the heating is over. Any of these three possible solutions, as you can imagine, will require a hell of a lot of new engineering work. Indeed, Manning says grimly: "These technologies are at very low TRL and have very uncertain outcomes on their success...We do not have high-likelihood Mars EDL systems to choose from." An advance test flight of any such general design will be necessary, with a lander weighing 10% as much as the actual manned lander. Yet another serious problem for those more eager than I am to see Footprints On Mars. Even the sample-return lander (about 1200 kg) will require a radically new parachute design.

[ljk4-1]

Exactly the same problem applies for a human-sized lander (30-100 metric tons) ANYWHERE on Mars -- because a lander 64 times more massive than another of generally similar design will have only 16 times as much forward aeroshell area to brake it during entry. 

This was the subject of Rob Manning's COMPLEX talk, which didn't make it into my final "Astronomy" article.  No practical parachute design can be big enough to solve the problem; nor can high lift/drag aeroshells (like the "Ellipsled" proposed to aerocapture Neptune Orbiter, or even a winged vehicle) solve it.

The only possible solutions are (1) rocket engines capable of firing out the lander's bottom at supersonic speeds BEFORE it deploys its chute (as Ed suggests), or (2) a huge, 20-30 meter diameter decelerator capable of working at hypersonic speeds -- either rigid (in which case it must survive the heat of entry), or inflatable and deployed after the heating is over.  Any of these three possible solutions, as you can imagine, will require a hell of a lot of new engineering work.  Indeed, Manning says grimly: "These technologies are at very low TRL and have very uncertain outcomes on their success...We do not have high-likelihood Mars EDL systems to choose from."  An advance test flight of any such general design will be necessary, with a lander weighing 10% as much as the actual manned lander.  Yet another serious problem for those more eager than I am to see Footprints On Mars.  Even the sample-return lander (about 1200 kg) will require a radically new parachute design.

Another problem to consider when landing on Mars with retrorockets: The fine powdery surface grains would spread far and wide and sandblast anything nearby. Better have landing pads far from the base, unless they come in on an airplane.

http://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicle/05/1...e_research.html

How much surface dirt did the Vikings kick out when they landed? Considering how much they wanted to find microbes at the landing site, and they could not move around, I am surprised in some ways that they did not think of another landing method to disturb the ground as little as possible.

[JonClarke]

How much surface dirt did the Vikings kick out when they landed?  Considering how much they wanted to find microbes at the landing site, and they could not move around, I am surprised in some ways that they did not think of another landing method to disturb the ground as little as possible.

Not Much Viking had three landing engines with 18 nozzles fueled by specially purified hydrazine monopropellant. The hydrazine would not contaminate the ground and the 18 nozzles were specifically designed to minimise erosion on the ground. Some effects were noted though not particularly severe.

Jon

[JonClarke]

This was the subject of Rob Manning's COMPLEX talk, which didn't make it into my final "Astronomy" article.  No practical parachute design can be big enough to solve the problem; nor can high lift/drag aeroshells (like the "Ellipsled" proposed to aerocapture Neptune Orbiter, or even a winged vehicle) solve it.

Do you haver a link to his COMPLEX work - abstracts, reports, etc?

Jon

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

Unfortunately, no -- at least for this document. I can keep looking for other documents with different names on ths subject, though -- or, failing that, at least type in the print in his PowerPoint presentation as an attachment here later on.

As for the Vikings: they shut off their engines at 3 meters altitude (versus 4 for the lunar Surveyors) -- and, as you say, they deliberately used a design of clustered small nozzles to minimize ground disturbance.

[edstrick]

Note regarding the Viking clustered engines: During testing of candidate engines -- maybe they already knew - that above a very few millibar pressures, a conventional bell-shaped engine nozzle's plume collapsed from a nearly hemisphereical plume to a focussed jet, as the plume detached from the nozzle. Simulated Viking landings in vaccuum chambers dug serious pits in the dirt and scattered it all over everywhere and everything. The Surveyor and Apollo LM engines would have done the same if Moon had a Mars like atmosphere.

Of course, the idiots we know who claim we never went to the moon don't know this. It's one of their stupid fallacies, that the rocket engines should have dug deep craters under the LM.

[JonClarke]

I was under the impression that Viking shut down just above the surface. "On Mars" however says that it occurred when the pads touched the ground.

Jon

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

I may have to scrounge for confirmation, but I'm absolutely sure from what I read at the time that the engines shut off at 10 feet up. They were, after all, extremely concerned on that mission about the possibility of contaminating their surface samples with terrestrial organics.

[RNeuhaus]

I don't think that the next manned mission to Mars would be a spaceship bigger than the Moon Landing because of the already discussed reasons (low Martian density, not-uninform density atmosphere, high delta velocity (5-6 k/s).

The most practical design would be multiples spaceship, one for manned, the other for cargo (oxigen, food and water) and the other for return. This is only valid for the present time technology and let us see how the technology will improve within 20 years.

About landing Phobos, it has other kind of challenges. Since it is orbiting from west to east 3 times a day (every 8:08 hour approx.) at 9,350 km from Mars and its is synchronous orbit radius to Mars. The spaceship would have to make many aerobraking orbits around Mars and have a much bigger fuel tanks in order to reduce its velocity before landing on the regolith covered by half meter of dust surface. Perhaps, it might have some ice as a water supplies to spaceship. Luckly it has no axis-rotation so the logistics for landing would not so complicated as to land to Eros or Itokawa.

Rodolfo

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

Note that Zakharov et al. have an abstract to be presented at the upcoming EGU General Assembly 2006.

[Bricktop]

Video of Phobos-Grunt

mms://restart.roscosmos.ru/Media/FOBOS2.wmv

[GravityWaves]

Soyuz is soon launching from Europe's Kourou

Their arianespace PDF files are online,
but it seems to a big download hundreds and hundreds of pages

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

Does anyone have any objections to merging this thread with the "Phobos-Grunt a reality?" thread?

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

I hope no one objects. I went ahead and merged the two topics.

[Decepticon]

I can't believe how many burns this probe needs to make!

I don't know about this one folks.

I have to admit Russian probes look cool.

[PhilHorzempa]

[size=2]


Recent news seems to indicate that Russia will be increasing its spending
on space in the next few years. Does anyone in the UMSF community know
if the Phobos-Grunt probe is set for a definite launch in 2009? I would think
that with the successful sample return of Stardust, that the Russians may be
more inclined to actually fly this mission. Does anyone know if a delay to
a launch in 2011 is being discussed? Also, is this probe definitely set to be
launched on the Soyuz-Fregat, or is the Proton still a contender?

[PhilHorzempa]

The Russians have recently issued a video summary of the Phobos-Grunt
mission.

You can find it at this site.

http://restart.roscosms.ru/Media/FOBOS2.wmv


It sounds as if the proper way to pronounce the name of this spacecraft
is Phobos-Groond. Also, if anyone is fluent in Russian, a translation would
be welcome.

The Phobos-Grunt mission appears to be ambitious and exciting. Note that
the return capsule foregoes a parachute, and uses "lithobraking" upon
landing on the Earth!
Also, the return sample core appears to build on the technology of the
latter Luna sample return missions, with the core being coiled-up inside of
the return capsule.

One interesting observation concerns the animation of Phobos itself.
Those of us who know the features of our Moon well, will recognize the map
of our Moon's Far Side wrapped around an irregularly-shaped object.


Another Phil

[ljk4-1]

This very recent article (in Russian) contains a diagram of the Phobos-Grunt mission:

http://www.federalspace.ru/NewsDoSele.asp?NEWSID=1581

[Guest_DonPMitchell_*]

Here are NPO Lavochkin's pages about it: Fobos-Grunt

[RNeuhaus]

The Phobos-Grunt spacecraft has a typical Russian design: rustic and simple in order to save useful weigh. That spaceship has a much greater volume proportion for fuel to the rest than any sonda that I have ever seen. The reason is to bring fuel for two ways!

Rodolfo

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

The Phobos-Grunt spacecraft has a typical Russian design: rustic and simple in order to save useful weigh[t].

Well, since it's been quite some time since the Russians have had a successful interplanetary mission, we'll see if they can simply pick up where they left off, with a Phobos sample return no less.

Craig Covault has an interesting piece in this week's issue of AW&ST ("Russians Criticize U.S. on Lunar and Planetary Cooperation") where he states:

"Russia is reenergizing its lunar and planetary program with the planned launch of a sample return mission to the Martian moon Phobos and the launch of an ambitious lunar penetrator mission, the first Russian mission to the Moon in 30 years (AW&ST June 5, p. 20). But Russian managers here said the U.S. has shown little or no interest in Russian overtures for collaboration on these flights."

Translation: The Russians are under no illusions that they don't need partners to make these missions work, which is why, in the absence of any firm collaboration agreements, I remain skeptical that, for example, Phobos-Grunt will ever happen, nice graphics and lofty rhetoric notwithstanding.

[RNeuhaus]

But Russian managers here said the U.S. has shown little or no interest in Russian overtures for collaboration on these flights."[/indent]

Why aren't the Americans much interested to work with Russian's overtures? Let suppose that this cooperation will have many advantages for them and also to our mankind:

1. Saves money.
2. Interchange of knowledge, technology and experience..
3. Shorten the development and launch cycle time.

I must admit that the above reason is just an ideal world. At this time and many centuries, we are still going to live with a country's domain barrier in our minds.

Translation: The Russians are under no illusions that they don't need partners to make these missions work, which is why, in the absence of any firm collaboration agreements, I remain skeptical that, for example, Phobos-Grunt will ever happen, nice graphics and lofty rhetoric notwithstanding.

Watch it out that Russian will probably join with others countries willing to work with him. Are ESA interested to work with Russian in returning its project of Phobos-Grunt?
I have the impression that ESA is at the present time not much interested to join with Russians to work on that project unless ESA is more interested on explorating on any Gallilean Moon: Europa.

Rodolfo

[Guest_DonPMitchell_*]

Why aren't the Americans much interested to work with Russian's overtures? Let suppose that this cooperation will have many advantages for them and also to our mankind:

1. Saves money.
2. Interchange of knowledge, technology and experience..
3. Shorten the development and launch cycle time.

But unfortunately, I don't think any of these benefits would be seen. Russia would not supply a lot of money, they have almost no technology that NASA needs, and international planning could actually complicate development. ESA has needed Russia (or America) to perform interplanetary launches, but I think they also prefer to do things themselves if they can.

The fact that Russia launched Mars Express and Venus Express does indicate they can perform sophisticated tasks. And their Earth-resource and military satellites perform many of the same kinds of manuevers and sensor readings of a planetary probe.

I wish them luck. To be honest, I think international competition is a good thing, it will excite passion and public support for space exploration.

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

The fact that Russia launched Mars Express and Venus Express does indicate they can perform sophisticated tasks. And their Earth-resource and military satellites perform many of the same kinds of manuevers and sensor readings of a planetary probe.

Unlike the case with interplanetary missions, Russia hasn't experienced a 20-year gap in launches, and no one really questions their launch capability. And I'm not sure that operating civilian earth-monitoring or military satellites is really that great an indicator as to whether they can pull off a Phobos sample return.

This post has been edited by AlexBlackwell: Jun 19 2006, 05:59 PM

[Jim from NSF.com]

The Russian design bureau's have habit of proposing missions and giving summaries to the media, when the RSA doesn't have the money to do anything. The Kliper is another example.

[Guest_DonPMitchell_*]

Unlike the case with interplanetary missions, Russia hasn't experienced a 20-year gap in launches, and no one really questions their launch capability. And I'm not sure that operating civilian earth-monitoring or military satellites is really that great an indicator as to whether they can pull off a Phobos sample return.

I'm sure NASA could do it. I'd give Russia or ESA about equal likelihood of being able to pull it off. Military and Earth-resource satellites require technology for precise attitude control and orbital maneuvering, which I think would be relevant to a mission like this.

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

I'm sure NASA could do it. I'd give Russia or ESA about equal likelihood of being able to pull it off. Military and Earth-resource satellites require technology for precise attitude control and orbital maneuvering, which I think would be relevant to a mission like this.

I'm sure it would be relevant, if not critical. I guess I'm looking at Phobos-Grunt in totality, not each individual component, which the Russians may or may not have sucessfully demonstrated in analogous situations. In the early stages, there were many who thought Mars Observer was simply going to be a matter of flying a terrestrial weather satellite to Mars. Or that MPL wasn't really that hard because we had already soft-landed on Mars twenty years before.

[tedstryk]

I'm sure it would be relevant, if not critical. I guess I'm looking at Phobos-Grunt in totality, not each individual component, which the Russians may or may not have sucessfully demonstrated in analogous situations. In the early stages, there were many who thought Mars Observer was simply going to be a matter of flying a terrestrial weather satellite to Mars. Or that MPL wasn't really that hard because we had already soft-landed on Mars twenty years before.

I think there is another thing to look at, in terms of ability to pull this mission off. Alex and Don have made posts concerning the technical aspects. But I think a lot of the debate is whether or not, come 2009, there will actually be a launch, or whether the mission dies on paper. I think there is a reasonable chance of this mission actually launching.

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

I think there is another thing to look at, in terms of ability to pull this mission off. Alex and Don have made posts concerning the technical aspects. But I think a lot of the debate is whether or not, come 2009, there will actually be a launch, or whether the mission dies on paper. I think there is a reasonable chance of this mission actually launching.

I'm not stating absolutely that this mission will never fly. I hope it does. And anything (e.g., the Russians putting together Phobos-Grunt in 36 months) is possible, I guess. However, I need to see a lot more than what has been shown so far before I become a believer. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, I've seen the Russians basically chumming the waters for partners with mission concepts and no one has bitten. I don't even think the Russians believe they can pull off the mission alone. If they did, why would they be concerned that, as Covault reports, the U.S. isn't showing enough interest? My fear is that U.S. dollars will be tied up in this effort. I say let the Russians first show they can do it, and if they're successful, then I have no doubt that potential partners will be lining up.

[Guest_DonPMitchell_*]

I think there is another thing to look at, in terms of ability to pull this mission off. Alex and Don have made posts concerning the technical aspects. But I think a lot of the debate is whether or not, come 2009, there will actually be a launch, or whether the mission dies on paper. I think there is a reasonable chance of this mission actually launching.

It's certainly something they've wanted to do for a long time.

[attachment=6323:attachment]

Here is a mystery photo for you all. There is something very interesting in this picture. Do you see it?

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

Here is a mystery photo for you all. There is something very interesting in this picture. Do you see it?

What, the Lavochkin and/or Babakin version of a "clean room"?

[Bob Shaw]

It's certainly something they've wanted to do for a long time.

[attachment=6323:attachment]

Here is a mystery photo for you all. There is something very interesting in this picture. Do you see it?

Don:

Er...

Bob Shaw

[tedstryk]

Don't see a picture...

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

Don't see a picture...

Yeah, it's gone. Strange. I saw it earlier when I replied to the post.

[RNeuhaus]

I'm not stating absolutely that this mission will never fly. I hope it does. And anything (e.g., the Russians putting together Phobos-Grunt in 36 months) is possible, I guess. However, I need to see a lot more than what has been shown so far before I become a believer. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, I've seen the Russians basically chumming the waters for partners with mission concepts and no one has bitten. I don't even think the Russians believe they can pull off the mission alone. If they did, why would they be concerned that, as Covault reports, the U.S. isn't showing enough interest? My fear is that U.S. dollars will be tied up in this effort. I say let the Russians first show they can do it, and if they're successful, then I have no doubt that potential partners will be lining up.

It is very well known of Russian's past missions to Mars which ended with 100% of failures for landers and some success for orbiters. It is of the year 80's, more than 25 years ago, at that time, there were NO cooperation between RSA and NASA (none ephemerals data) and the technology were very much backward.

Then now, these days, there is cooperation between them about the ephemerals data? The space technology of RSA is not so much backward as before. In spite of the fact of changing time, I think that the RSA mission to Phobos-Grunt is still of moderate risk since RSA has never tried a similar mission. I won't compare it as Earth - Moon versus Earth- Mars - Phobos which is somewhat more complicated since that mission there is one hoop additional (inter-planetary). That is the first kind of mission, return from another planet! that would be a deed that Russian likes according to long space history!

Rodolfo

[ljk4-1]

Yeah, it's gone. Strange. I saw it earlier when I replied to the post.

All of Don Mitchell's images in the Spacecraft Images thread are gone as well.

What happened?

[djellison]

Not sure what's going on. The images all remain safe within the uploads folder, so they are certainly not 'gone'.

I'm going to check up with variaous support forums etc, see if anyone knows of a symptom like this. Very strange indeed.

Doug

[tedstryk]

It is very well known of Russian's past missions to Mars which ended with 100% of failures for landers and some success for orbiters. It is of the year 80's, more than 25 years ago, at that time, there were NO cooperation between RSA and NASA (none ephemerals data) and the technology were very much backward.

Then now, these days, there is cooperation between them about the ephemerals data? The space technology of RSA is not so much backward as before. In spite of the fact of changing time, I think that the RSA mission to Phobos-Grunt is still of moderate risk since RSA has never tried a similar mission. I won't compare it as Earth - Moon versus Earth- Mars - Phobos which is somewhat more complicated since that mission there is one hoop additional (inter-planetary). That is the first kind of mission, return from another planet! that would be a deed that Russian likes according to long space history!

Rodolfo

Actually, I believe their was cooperation on Phobos-2. In fact, Americans were involved in tracking the spacecraft to determine the decay rate of the orbit of Phobos (the moon, not Phobos-2). There was also limited exchange of data on the earlier missions.

[ljk4-1]

Not sure what's going on. The images all remain safe within the uploads folder, so they are certainly not 'gone'.

I'm going to check up with variaous support forums etc, see if anyone knows of a symptom like this. Very strange indeed.

Doug

Is the 1 MB limit for attachments causing this? I was wondering how Don
could post so many images - not that I'm complaining, mind you.

[Bob Shaw]

Doug:

Maybe you can raise the limits re size/quantity of posts for A Selected Few? Don's posts would qualify for special treatment by any criteria, IMHO.

Darn. Just got my post allocation chopped to 10k, have I?

Bob Shaw

[djellison]

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=2878

(totally unrealted to attachment limits - and indeed, Don is the sort of guy whereby if he reached the limit - I'd increase it )

Doug

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

Craig Covault, reporting from the Farnborough 2006 Air Show, has an interesting article ("Mars Phobos Mission Readied As Russia Weighs Goals") in the July 17, 2006, issue of Aviation Week & Space Technology. Rather than quoting excerpts, which is tough to do while maintaining context, and which also misses some of the Lavochkin artwork, I'll go ahead and attach the article in this message.

Attached File(s)

 Mars_Phobos_Mission_Readied_As_Russia_Weighs_Goals.pdf ( 142.62K ) Number of downloads: 1410

 

[nprev]

...ambitious, hope that it flies!!!

I wonder how long the surface sample acquisition & return launch process is anticipated to last. The three-year timeframe sure reminds me of the manned Mars landing proposals that only permitted a ten-day surface stay...not a lot of schedule slack there, especially if there are problems...

EDIT: Whoops...I may have confused that (presumably Hohmann) trajectory stay time with that of a much faster nuclear-powered trip that featured something like a six-month dash each way. Can someone please clarify?

[jamescanvin]

It says 11 months transit each way.

It also says the lander is designed to last a year on the surface.

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

Note that Zakharov et al. have a related abstract for the upcoming European Planetary Science Conference 2006.

[konangrit]

Perminov also said China may sign a contract to participate in a Russian project to bring soil back from one of Mars' moons - Phobos.

"One of the directions we are working in is a flight to Phobos, with Chinese participation, which will bring back some of its soil to Earth," Perminov said. "We plan to reach the final stage [of our talks] by the end of 2006, possibly even by the start of the sub-commission's work under Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov."

Russia, China could sign Moon exploration pact in 2006

[IM4]

In fact after global redesigning in 2003 some of Fobos-Grunt payload (50-100 kg) had been allocated for additional scientific instruments, presumably of foreign origin (european first of all). That’s the opportunity we offer to Chinese and some agreement had been finally reached. The kind of payload is still to be determined. It can be some instrument or even small exploration probe like japanese “Minerva”, which failed to land on Itokawa. The main question is whether Chinese manage to meet deadline of 2009 year launch.

By now launch date remains steady and funding increases progressively every year. First technological model of spacecraft was manufactured this summer and already shipped to vibrotesting. So we have all chances to make Fobos-Grunt a reality.

Of course this is a very ambitious mission, even more complex and difficult than Hayabusa. Fobos-Grunt will perform actual landing, not hovering in Haybusa’s style, that’s much more risky and greatly depend on too many circumstances which are still unknown. For example there is still exist no accurate map of Phobos. We need map with resolution of 30 cm to detect all potentially hazardous rubbles and slopes, but currently only 3-5 m resolution available. Nonetheless after preliminary investigations several landing sites were chosen. Primary site is located near 20 S, 315 W. This is equatorial region on Mars-facing side of Phobos , in its trailing hemisphere. See picture , I tried to attach. Smooth terrain without significant rubbles or grooves spans 310-360 W longitude and 40 S – 10 N latitude. Suitable place for landing and for observation - almost all the sky will be filled with Mars. After deorbit from near-Phobos trajectory landing ellipse has sizes of approximately 800x400 meters, but actually spacecraft can be autonomously guided to the chosen site within accuracy of ~10 m. Rather tricky, but paraphrasing famous sentence : “We choose to go to the Phobos till the end of decade, not ‘cause it easy, but ‘cause it hard.”

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[Phil Stooke]

Thank you for this interesting contribution.

Can you say if a scientific paper will be published or a conference presentation will be made concerning the site selection process?

I remember discussing this with some people from GEOKHI several years ago. At that time a site on the northeast rim of Stickney was thought to be a possible site.

Phil Stooke

[RNeuhaus]

Welcome IM4. Your report was very interesting. Shall you let us know where do you get the above information? Is there a Phobos-Grunt project WEB portal?

Rodolfo

[MaxSt]

Suitable place for landing and for observation - almost all the sky will be filled with Mars.

That would make for some great panoramas from the ground, I imagine...

[IM4]

I remember discussing this with some people from GEOKHI several years ago. At that time a site on the northeast rim of Stickney was thought to be a possible site.

There are several possible sites, i suppose. Ultimate decision will be made only after detailed imaging. You are right about Stickney rim, such a place was also under consideration, for example see this abstract from LPSC-2000 by Kuzmin, Shingareva. However their later papers in the "Astronomicheskiy vestnik" ("Astronomical bulletin") were referred to another places. As far as I know Springer is currently republishing "Astronomicheskiy vestnik", but I don’t know exact English title for this journal.

Is there a Phobos-Grunt project WEB portal?

I doubt if such portal really exists. Information about Fobos-Grunt is dispersed among numerous articles, interviews and press-releases. I’ve just summarized some materials into single message.

[RNeuhaus]

A new update.

Russia Hopes To Launch Craft To Mission Mars Moon Phobos In 2009

The interesting points are:

1) He said there will be no need to use heavy carrier rockets, which make such launches very expensive.

2) The launch window for the voyage to Phobos is October 2009, and the journey will take 10-11 months. The spacecraft will begin its return journey to earth in 2011, which will take another 10-11 months.

Rodolfo

[Phil Stooke]

There is this Phobos website:

http://www.kiam1.rssi.ru/PHOBOS/

(in russian...) - at the Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics. Some links lead to English text.

Phil

[RNeuhaus]

Phi, Many thanks for posting the URL.

Rodolfo

[konangrit]

...Nosenko said that Russia had agreed to help China in its lunar research program and China would also take part in Russia's project of sending an unmanned probe to Mars' moon, Phobos, to take soil samples and deliver them back to Earth.



China will build a mini-satellite that would be carried by the Russian probe and released in the vicinity of Mars to conduct research, said Georgy Polishchuk, the head of the NPO Lavochkin company, which is working on the mission. It is set to launch in 2009...

Russia, China Plan Joint Space projects

[infocat13]

Perhaps HIRISE could assist with site selection?

[tuvas]

Perhaps HIRISE could assist with site selection?

I doubt it, I would guess that HiRISE won't get that great of resolution of Phobos, but I'm too lazy to do the math myself... Just would like to know what the Russian's fascination with Phobos is...

[Stu]

Just would like to know what the Russian's fascination with Phobos is...

Hmmmm. Well, its often been compared in shape to "a big, blackened potato", and potatoes are a staple part of the Russian diet. Maybe a Russian Hoagland has convinced the powers that be over there that it could be brought back to Earth and used to feed everyone...

[djellison]

I doubt it, I would guess that HiRISE won't get that great of resolution of Phobos, but I'm too lazy to do the math myself.

Well - roughly speaking, am I right in thinking that if you take the range in km, take a zero off, you can call it about that many cm/pixel ( i.e. 250-300k orbit = 25-20cm/pixel )

So - a good Phobos targetting opportunity would be about 10m/pixel, and Deimos about 25m/pixel

Doug

[Phil Stooke]

tuvas: "Just would like to know what the Russian's fascination with Phobos is..."

It's a niche not yet exploited by others, and a valuable science target in its own right. First landing, first samples, chance of Mars material among the samples, solve controversy over its origin - lots of good reasons to go there.

Phil

[JTN]

http://restart.roscosms.ru/Media/FOBOS2.wmv

That link doesn't work for me any more. In case anyone else was still looking for that video, it's ended up on YouTube. (There was also a copy of the WMV here a few weeks ago, although I can't access it today.)

The kind of payload [from China] is still to be determined. It can be some instrument or even small exploration probe like japanese “Minerva”, which failed to land on Itokawa. The main question is whether Chinese manage to meet deadline of 2009 year launch.

(Since no-one else has mentioned this yet:)
There have been some more news reports about this in the last few days. RIA Novosti suggests a "micro-satellite" from China will be dropped into Mars orbit (as has already been noted in this thread). Additionally, the IHT seems to think that China would "supply a device that would collect the soil samples" (seems rather late in the day to be deciding that?).

Dio's comments in another thread may also be of interest.

[IM4]

HERE you can see large photo of the full-sized Phobos-Grunt mockup. Real spacecraft production starts this year, possibly in the nearest time. It won't be flight exemplar, but several identical spacecrafts for vibro-, thermo- and so on testing.

[konangrit]

Some more details have been announced for the Chinese contribution named "Yinghuo-1":

China's first Mars probe will be launched in October 2009 as part of a joint mission with Russia, say sources with the Shanghai Space Administration, the main developer of the probe.

Researchers are pressing ahead with a joint launch with a Russian probe, said Chen Changya, a researcher at the Shanghai Institute of Satellite Engineering, at a space technology exhibition here.

Initiated by Shanghai Space Administration, the China-made probe will be developed by a number of organizations, including the Center of Space Science and Applied Research with the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Shanghai Meteorological Observatory. Chen has been invited to work in the development of the probe to the Mars.

During Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to Russia in late March, the two governments signed an agreement to launch joint exploration of Mars and Phobos, the innermost and biggest of the red planet's moons.

Under the agreement, a Russian rocket will lift a Chinese probe, actually a satellite, and a Russian exploration vehicle -- known as Phobos-Grunt -- to survey Mars and Phobos.

The small Chinese satellite will explore Mars while the Russian craft will land on Phobos to explore the environment and take soil samples.

The two vehicles will reach the orbit of Mars in 2010 more than10 months after their launch.

"We hope to explore the spatial environment there, secrets behind disappearance of water, and the features of evolution," said Chen.

The China-made probe -- 75 centimeters long, 75 centimeters wide, 60 centimeters high and weighing 110 kilograms -- was designed for a two-year mission, said Chen.

China still needed to achieve breakthroughs in three key technologies of remote observation and control, automatic control and heat control, said Chen.

A design for the Chinese probe would have been finished by April next year, but the probe would be finished by June 2009.

Xinhua

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

Thanks for the update, konangrit. Phobos and Deimos have always fascinated me, so I sincerely hope this mission comes off.

However, as my comments throughout this thread indicate, I remain "cautiously skeptical."

[mchan]

>> The China-made probe -- 75 centimeters long, 75 centimeters wide, 60 centimeters high and weighing 110 kilograms -- was designed for a two-year mission

That's small for an interplanetary spacecraft. The description sounds like the Phobos-Grunt carrier can drop off the Chinese probe after the carrier achieves Mars orbit, so the China probe does not require an orbit insertion propulsion system which would save a lot of mass. It would be an impressive feat if it carries a good science payload and the power / comm to send data back.

[nprev]

That IS tiny...makes me wonder if they intend to equip it only with a UHF omni antenna/transceiver & use Phobos-Grunt as a relay to/from Earth. If so, what a role-reversal...

[elakdawalla]

I found a lot of information on this in a presentation by Swedish scientist Stas Barabash. Yinghuo-1 will separate from Phobos-Grunt after MOI. It has no orbit transfer capabilities of its own, so will remain in a 800-by-80,000-kilometer equatorial orbit. It will have a 0.9- to 1.0-meter S-band HGA.

--Emily

[Adam]

If I remember correctly there were plans for a swedish probe in the Phobos-grunt mission, just like the chinese one a few years ago. Seems like China was more interested.

[nprev]

Thanks, Emily; terrific as usual (gee, you must be a journalist or something!) A damn good one, I might add.

Very ambitious yet compact; seems to reflect China's aggressive design philosophy to date (re the differences between Shenzhou V & VI); lots of confidence here. At this rate, they'll fly a Flagship-class mission independently by 2015!

[elakdawalla]

If all that it takes to be a journalist is to know my way to google.com, then I'm a journalist.

--Emily