Phobos-Grunt |
Phobos-Grunt |
Jan 22 2005, 02:15 PM
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Interplanetary Dumpster Diver Group: Admin Posts: 4404 Joined: 17-February 04 From: Powell, TN Member No.: 33 |
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 -------------------- |
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Jul 7 2008, 01:38 PM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1729 Joined: 3-August 06 From: 43° 35' 53" N 1° 26' 35" E Member No.: 1004 |
In case you forgot, the ill-fated Phobos 1 was launched exactly 20 years ago on 7 July 1988 http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraftD...do?id=1988-058A
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Jul 7 2008, 02:43 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 149 Joined: 18-June 08 Member No.: 4216 |
In case you forgot, the ill-fated Phobos 1 was launched exactly 20 years ago on 7 July 1988 http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraftD...do?id=1988-058A Hello to everyone, I am new to this mailing list. I just wanted to point out the Phobos-Grunt mission is similar to the original Phobos project 20 years ago in one other significant way: the quality of the launch window. This is usually quantified by the "hyperbolic velocity" at departure and arrival, in other words the amount of energy (or fuel) that the spacecraft needs to expend in order to slip into the correct trajectory for the Earth-Mars portion of the trip, and the energy at arrival needed to break into orbit around Mars when it gets there. Trajectory designers usually look for the smallest hyperbolic velocities possible in order to maximise the mass of the spacecraft. For Phobos 2 those were about 3.5 km/sec at departure from Earth on 12/07/1988 and 2.6 km/sec for arrival at Mars at 29/01/2989. For Phobos-Grunt, a departure on 05/10/2009 and arrival at 29/08/2010 gives hyp. velocities of 3.3 km/sec and 2.5 km/sec, quite similar to those of Phobos 2. One other thing: the Phobos 2 trajectory allowed for an almost equatorial arrival at Mars. In other words, the spacecraft could (and did) settle into the equatorial plane of Mars directly from its hyperbolic arrival trajectory. This is useful (as in "fuel-saving") if you are trying to rendezvous with a satellite in an equatorial orbit, such as Phobos and is not necessarily true for *every* launch opportunity to Mars. It is true for the 2009 Phobos-Grunt window however. Hopefully the above will be of some use. Tolis. |
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