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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Guest_Zvezdichko_* |
Aug 8 2009, 10:38 AM
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Guests |
Too bad they are so secretive. 200 m resolution doesn't impress me either.
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Aug 8 2009, 11:10 AM
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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 |
The presentation I was sent was intended for internal use only and not for publication or distribution, so I was asked not to make it public.
As for the camera, I am getting the impression that the focus of the mission will actually be ionospheric studies. probably the camera is carried to produce "something visual" for PR. Anyway, there are two cameras actually, with square 20 degree and 38 degree fields |
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Aug 8 2009, 05:19 PM
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Merciless Robot Group: Admin Posts: 8784 Joined: 8-December 05 From: Los Angeles Member No.: 602 |
probably the camera is carried to produce "something visual" for PR. That's an encouraging paradigm for an emergent space agency; I hope that other organizations will take note (cough, ahem.) And actually, given the anticipated highly elliptical orbit & consequent viewing geometry, there might be some spectacular pics indeed despite the low resolution. -------------------- A few will take this knowledge and use this power of a dream realized as a force for change, an impetus for further discovery to make less ancient dreams real.
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Aug 9 2009, 02:12 AM
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Interplanetary Dumpster Diver Group: Admin Posts: 4404 Joined: 17-February 04 From: Powell, TN Member No.: 33 |
http://www.typicallyspanish.com/news/publi...cle_22517.shtml
This is odd....I have seen this variations on this story in a few places, and they seem totally confident about flying the precursor mission on Phobos-Grunt in 2011...either the press is getting confused, there are poor communications, or they (the MetNet team) know something we don't. -------------------- |
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