* Astronomy

Blobrana · L

RE: Phobos-Grunt Mission

Blobrana · L

Russia Mars probe may fall to Earth in January

A Russian probe that was to visit a moon of Mars but is stuck in orbit around the Earth could burn up in the Earth's atmosphere in January, the head of the Russian space agency said Monday.
Vladimir Popovkin denied that the Phobos-Grunt probe was considered lost and said scientists had until December to try to re-establish contact, re-programme the probe and send it on its planned trajectory to Mars.
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Blobrana · L

PHOBOS-GRUNT
1 37872U 11065A   11317.51854193  .00171257  11418-4  17677-3 0   207
2 37872 051.4325 336.2663 0095083 047.1028 313.9134 16.01210904   755

Period:       89.96 minutes
Inclination: 51.43°
Apogee:     339 km
Perigee:     207 km

Blobrana · L

Russia fails to make contact with Mars moon probe

Russia has again been unsuccessful in its attempt to establish contact with its Phobos Grunt probe, whose engines failed to put in on course for Mars after take-off, a source in the space rocket industry said Saturday.
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Blobrana · L

PHOBOS-GRUNT
1 37872U 11065A   11315.20886687 -.00002358  11386-4  12469-5 0   132
2 37872 051.4279 348.6620 0099321 034.6157 326.1098 16.00626105   383

Period:       89.97 minutes
Inclination: 51.43°
Apogee:     339 km
Perigee:     206 km

Blobrana · L

Stricken Mars probe stays silent

Efforts are continuing to try to regain control of the Russian Mars mission that is stuck circling the Earth.
The Phobos-Grunt spacecraft was put in orbit on Wednesday, but failed to fire the engine that was designed to take it on to the Red Planet.
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Blobrana · L

Chance of Russia Mars probe rescue 'very small'

The chances of rescuing a Russian probe that is stuck in an Earth orbit after failing to set out on its planned mission for Mars are very small, the Interfax news agency reported on Friday.
Mission control failed overnight even to obtain data from the Phobos-Grunt probe, which was launched earlier this week in what Moscow had hoped would be a triumphant return to inter-planetary exploration, it said.
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Ed ~ If the spacecraft is unable to be fixed, re-entry is predicted to occur sometime after 1st December, 2011.

Blobrana · L

PHOBOS-GRUNT
1 37872U 11065A   11314.33481518  .00161918  11386-4  16589-3 0    96
2 37872 051.4299 353.3505 0099992 029.8723 330.7997 16.00520854   247

Period:       89.99 minutes
Inclination: 51.43°
Apogee:     341 km
Perigee:     207 km

SL-16 RB
1 37873U 11065B   11313.83352744 +.00677928 +11488-4 +54713-3 0 00052
2 37873 051.4387 356.0257 0098308 023.4553 337.0319 16.03691126000131

Period:       89.82 minutes
Inclination: 51.44°
Apogee:     330 km
Perigee:     201 km

Blobrana · L

Source

Blobrana · L

Russia's attempts to save Mars probe unsuccessful

Russia's space agency says it has failed so far to fix a probe bound for a moon of Mars that got stuck in Earth's orbit.
Roscosmos spokesman Alexei Kuznetsov says efforts to communicate with the unmanned Phobos-Grunt (Phobos-Ground) spacecraft hadn't brought any results yet.
Source