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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Oct 29 2009, 08:32 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 149 Joined: 18-June 08 Member No.: 4216 |
Hi All,
According to www.russiansdpaceweb.com/phobos_grunt_preflight.html#delay2009 the Phobos Grunt mission as intended to fly in 2009 is too heavy for the 2011 launch window. It will have to lose 150 kg to allow the same Zenit LV to hurl it to Mars. I would imagine this is not news to the Russian ballisticians in change of P-B trajectory analysis. Launch window quality is usually known decades in advance of the actual flight projects that utilise them. In addition, the 2011 window does not allow a Mars orbit insertion directly into an equatorial orbit (where Phobos is); therefore more fuel is needed to "zero out" the probe's orbital inclination. It will be interesting to see how the problem is tackled. Some obvious options would be either switching to a more powerful LV (a Proton is mentioned in the article) or losing some of the payload. What I'm not sure I understand is previous statements regarding the possibility of flying a MetNet Precursor mission piggyback on P-G in 2011. Surely, one would not want to *add* payload to a vehicle that is already overweight. Perhaps someone can shed some light into all this. Tolis. |
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