Phobos-Grunt Options

[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

[Phil Stooke]

That's all it takes to do anything nowadays.

Phil

[mchan]

I found a lot of information on this...

Good info, Emily. Thanks.

I am not sure of the characters for "Yinghuo", but Mars in Chinese is literally "Fire Star" which is pronounced "huoxing" in the common dialect.

[elakdawalla]

This was the best thing I could find on what Yinghuo might mean, but I wasn't at all sure of the context on this site:
http://www.chinapage.com/astronomy/syho/syho.html

--Emily

[mchan]

Interesting site. Yinghuo appears to be the name of the "Heaven" which "contains Mars" in an ancient Chinese astronomy text. It does not refer to the common name of the planet itself.

[Pedro_Sondas]

Yinghuo in Chinese characters is related to glow worm, but China plans to collect more names from the public before naming it formally.

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article/20...icle_316758.htm