Phobos-Grunt Options

[Paolo]

An image of the Phobos Grunt mission profile
And some future (futuristic) Lavochkin projects, including Mars Grunt, Luna Glob, Venera D etc.

[Paolo]

Some info about the engine hardware on Fobos Grunt (page 14)

[Phil Stooke]

There's some new information on Phobos from Mars Express here:

http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMB82TG7MF_index_0.html


This includes an image showing the Phobos-Grunt landing site candidates. Beware of the text on the landing site link, though - it says "the Russian Federal Space Agency is now considering to move the landing location slightly to the north of the previous one, to a safer area located between 7°-21°S and 214°-233°W." It's actually 7 to 21 north, not south. This also puts their landing sites in the area seen in the highest resolution Viking images, at roughly 20 north, 235 west.

I've attached the Viking image - a mosaic of two frames, blurred a bit by motion, with the sites added as white dots. The Viking images are still the best for this area.

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

More very useful information on Phobos-Grunt landing sites in an abstract by Sasha Basilevsky at the Vernadsky-Brown Microsymposium, held a couple of weeks ago in Moscow:

http://www.planetology.ru/browsefiles.php

(I gave the link to the abstract page, not just Sasha's abstract, so you can see the others - check out the really good one on Lunokhod-2)

Watch out for the map of PG landing sites, though - it shows the old ones.

Phil

[peter59]

(I gave the link to the abstract page, not just Sasha's abstract, so you can see the others - check out the really good one on Lunokhod-2)

Abstract conclusion : All Lunokhod 2 panoramas were digitized.
I hope that soon we will take a virtual tour inside the Le Monnier crater.

[SFJCody]

I wonder when (if?) Phobos-Grunt will get a delay announcement.

[Paolo]

I wonder when (if?) Phobos-Grunt will get a delay announcement.

Otherwise, F-G will be th only Mars mission of 2009...

[SpaceListener]

I wonder when (if?) Phobos-Grunt will get a delay announcement.

Not yet I have heard of this. This is not only a Russian project but too of China. China will request assistance from Russia to launch the Yinghuo-1 Chinese-made Mars probe. Hence Phobos-Grunt and Yinghuo-1 will travel together to Mars.

From economics perspective, I suspect that Russia will have more trouble in financing the project since Russia depends upon much of oil earnings. China will assist the financial to Russia to accomplish the joint mission if Russia request for help.

China To Launch Probe to Mars With Russian Help in 2009

Hope that this would be a space streaming news during 2009.

[Paolo]

According to the most recent RKA news release (dated 29 october, in russian) development is proceeding is schedule

[IM4]

According to insiders, Phobos-Grunt will also be delayed by 2 years. That's not a financial, but rather engineering issues with spacecraft bus "Navigator", first of its kind.

[Paolo]

According to this week's issue of French "Air et Cosmos" it seems that the 2009 launch window is no longer achievable and the mission will be delayed to 2011.
For any other member who can read French: go find a copy of Air and Cosmos because this issue (no 2151, 12 december) has a very good 2-page article on Lavochkin's lunar plans!

[Paolo]

Doubts doubts doubts...
I was wondering about the latest F-G/YH-1 stack configuration, which look something like this
assuming that a mission profile "à la Fobos" is used, the Fregat stage at bottom places the stack into Mars orbit and then circularizes the orbit to one close to that of Phobos. After this, F-G and YH-1 are released. Does this mean that YH-1 will not enter the announced 800 x 80,000 km orbit but will instead enter a circular one 6000 km above the planet?
I see no way YH-1 can be released from this stack just after orbit insertion as initially announced, unless the Fregat is used only to enter Mars orbit and the circularization is carried out by F-G onboard engine...
any idea? suggestions?
Of course, this article suggests that YH-1 will be placed in an eccentric orbit, as I can see no way a circular orbit can have 8.8 hours eclipses.
There is something wrong with either the mission profile or the stack images, or the article...

[mps]

I see no way YH-1 can be released from this stack just after orbit insertion as initially announced, unless the Fregat is used only to enter Mars orbit and the circularization is carried out by F-G onboard engine...
any idea? suggestions?

It seems to me that Fregat is used only to leave Earth orbit, MOI and following maneuvers are handled by the s/c itself: youtube video
Of course, this is quite old video and doesn't feature Yinghuo-1, so it all could have changed by now.

[Paolo]

It seems to me that Fregat is used only to leave Earth orbit, MOI and following maneuvers are handled by the s/c itself: youtube video

That's true, but in this case the position of YH-1 would interfere with the firing of the engine at MOI

[ugordan]

I don't think Fregat can be used to brake at Mars, it's a launch vehicle upper stage similar to a Centaur on Atlas and it's not meant to spend months in deep space.

This implies YH-1 would have to separate before MOI or would have to be placed at a different location.