From Google auto-translation:

"Three days". Is that how long they have to figure it out and fix it?

Well, looks like we'll get a human translation soon; thanks in advance, "slugnads".

Something official-looking (quoting Vladimir Popovkin, General Director of the Russian Federal Space Agency) from RIA Novosti (Google translation). (via NSF)

Translation of the direct quote, also from Svetoslav on NSF:



EDIT: (i) jinx; (ii) the RIA Novosti article is getting longer every time I look at it. Perhaps something else interesting in there?

"We've had a bad night, we could not detect long spacecraft, now found his position. It was found that the propulsion system failed. There was neither the first nor the second inclusion," - said Popovkin.

The information/rumours there right now look like the same ones we've already seen based on public posts on SeeSat-L and NSF; nothing new that I can see.

Would the second object in the same orbit be the upper stage of the Zenit launcher?

So maybe Fobos-Grunt is alive, even if in a contingency mode.

U.S. DSN's Goldstone Antenna Complex received one ping from Spacecraft. SC performed TM downlink via all available channels, this is indicating an anomaly detected by SC computer. Roscosmos inserted an SC slew commanding sequence in the flight program to point the SC's antennas toward the North (to be pointing at U.S., European, Russian ground stations) in the event of a problem before the burn(s) so that data can be more quickly obtained. This allows them to analyze the data and try again another day since MDU is completely powered by SC's solar panels. Goldstone DSN is indicating that SC is in a contingency safe mode. Contact was lost at planned LOS (with no first burn) and was not picked up by Europe's first tracking station. Sun pointing for solar panels may not have been established before battery charging was commenced by flight computer.

RussianSpaceWeb Anatoly Zak
Phobos-Grunt circles Earth in the state of virtual informational blackout: russianspaceweb.com/phobos_grunt_l… Roskosmos and Co. asleep at the wheel?
38 seconds ago

Phobos-Grunt - serious problem reported
From: Ted Molczan (ssl3molcz@rogers.com)
Date: Wed Nov 09 2011 - 00:05:16 UTC


I have just received word from the project that there seems to be a serious problem.

After the planned first burn of the engine, the spacecraft was not found in the predicted orbit. Alternative radar
observations preliminarily show that there are two objects in the orbit with parameters the same as before the planned
engine burn. Observers are requested to attempt to discover the spacecraft in the initial LEO parking orbit.

This is the official pre-launch estimated TLE of the LEO parking orbit:

1 55500U 11000A 11312.95486111 -.00010748 00000-0 -11606-4 0 14
2 55500 51.4279 0.6058 0106375 25.7555 298.8256 15.98414689 33

I imagine that one of the two objects seen on the radar could be the final stage of the booster. Accurate descriptions
and counts of the number of objects seen, as well as position and time would be useful.

Ted Molczan

Telemetry information, I guess. I was tempted to say Trans-Mars Injection, but it was spelled TMI in Russian as well so I guess not...

I should hope not because it's too early for that.

That segment you quoted appears to be talking about vehicle state after initial parking orbit injection, as per a translation on NSF.com:


Which was preceded by :

ТМИ идет
пошел заряд АБ
есть ПСО
есть СОлнце

FOBOS-GRUNT Launch: If everything goes as planned, Russia will launch its FOBOS-GRUNT (Phobos-Soil) probe to Mars tonight at 7:16pm EST on a Zenit-2SB/Fregat rocket. The Phobos Sample Return Mission PhSRM, which is also carrying a Chinese Mars satellite, Yinghuo-1, a 2nd Chinese experiment, and an experiment of the U.S. Planetary Society, will land on the Martian moon and return a soil sample (~200g) to Earth. It will also study Mars from orbit, including its atmosphere and dust storms, plasma and radiation environment. The return vehicle is scheduled to arrive back on Earth in August 2014. The spacecraft will be inserted into a 207 x 347 km elliptical orbit inclined 51.4 deg. After 2.5 hrs flight (1.7 revs) the main propulsion system will be ignited to transfer the spacecraft into an elliptical orbit of 250 km x 4150 (...4170) km, with a period of 2.2 hrs. After 2.1 hrs (1 revolution), a 2nd engine burn for TMI (Trans-Mars Injection) at 8:04:06pm EST will transfer the spacecraft into an interplanetary Earth-Mars trajectory.
The ISS crew will be able to view PhSRM tonight, starting at ~7:58pm, at a range of 3248 nmi., with the spacecraft and its exhaust plume in sunlight for the entire duration of the viewing opportunity and the ISS in eclipse (darkness). If successful, Russia is back in the business of planetary exploration. Let’s all wish them well! Godspeed, Fobos-Grunt!

GEmin1,

Thank you for the link! It's gonna be precious tomorrow afternoon!!

And thanks for correcting the price tag! I can't even remember now where I read that it was 64 million dollars!

GO FOBOS-GRUNT!

Densely clouded in acid-laden mist, Venus used to be the Soviet Union's favourite target for planetary exploration.

Now, after a lull of almost three decades, Russia is making plans for a new mission to the "morning star" and has invited Western scientists to participate.

THE MARS AEROBOT EFFORT

* After the success of the Venus VEGA balloons, Blamont focused on a more ambitious balloon mission to Mars, to be carried on a Soviet space probe.

The atmospheric pressure on Mars is about 150 times less than that of Earth. In such a thin atmosphere, a balloon with a volume of 5,000 to 10,000 cubic meters (178,500 to 357,000 cubic feet) could carry a payload of 20 kilograms (44 pounds), while a balloon with a volume of 100,000 cubic meters (3,570,000 cubic feet) could carry 200 kilograms (440 pounds).

The French had already conducted extensive experiments on Earth with solar Montgolfieres, performing over 30 flights from the late 1970s into the early 1990s. The Montgolfieres flew at an altitude of 35 kilometers, where the atmosphere was as thin and cold as it would be on Mars, and one spent 69 days aloft, circling the Earth twice.

Early concepts for the Mars balloon featured a "dual balloon" system, with a sealed hydrogen or helium-filled balloon tethered to a solar Montgolfiere. The light-gas balloon was designed to keep the Montgolfiere off the ground at night. During the day, the Sun would heat up the Montgolfiere, causing the balloon assembly to rise.

Eventually, the group decided on a cylindrical sealed helium balloon with an envelope made of Mylar, and with a volume of 5,500 cubic meters (196,000 cubic feet). The balloon would rise when heated during the day and sink as it cooled at night.

Total mass of the balloon assembly was 65 kilograms (143 pounds), with a 15 kilogram (33 pound) gondola and a 13.5 kilogram (30 pound) instrumented guiderope. The balloon was expected to operate for ten days. Unfortunately, although considerable development work was performed on the balloon and its subsystems, Russian financial difficulties pushed the Mars probe out from 1992; then to 1994; and then to 1996. The Mars balloon was dropped from the project due to cost constraints, and the probe was lost on launch in 1996 anyway.

What I know is, that one of the Buran Orbiters (finished or unfinished, I don't know) now is a home for 4-5 families. I've seen it in a german documentation about Baikonur.

No, they're not. A torrent to legally available stuff - fine. A torrent to rips etc, no.

Do you have that "documentation" somewhere on internet?
Perhaps a link to it?