. Space Industry and Business News .




.
TECH SPACE
Russia Mars probe 'crashes into Pacific': military
by Anna Malpas
Moscow (AFP) Jan 15, 2012


Russia vowed Monday to expose the officials responsible for the failure of a Mars probe that the military said crashed into the Pacific Ocean after being stuck in orbit around the Earth for more than two months.

The 13.5-tonne Phobos-Grunt probe re-entered the Earth's atmosphere late Sunday, apparently crashing into the Pacific in an ignominious end to an ill-fated bid to relaunch Russia's interplanetary programme, the military said.

It had blasted off November 9 on an ambitious mission to collect soil samples from Mars' largest moon Phobos. But its booster rockets never triggered and the probe lost contact with ground control and spiralled into an uncontrolled descent.

"I'm taking personal control of the investigation into the reasons for the Phobos-Grunt accident," Russia's former ambassador to NATO and recently appointed Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin wrote on his Twitter account.

Rogozin said he expected the Russian space agency Roscosmos "to name the anti-heroes" responsible for the latest in a series of space failures.

"I am expecting Roscosmos' promised report on the reasons for the accidents, the names of the anti-heroes and also its view on the prospects for developing the space sector up to 2030," he wrote.

He added that he would attend a meeting with constructors on January 31.

A lack of information about what happened on board is likely to hamper investigators in pinning down the cause of the failure, a source in the space industry told the Interfax news agency.

"There is practically no telemetric information from onboard the craft. There is also not enough supporting evidence to draw a picture of what happened on board."

Russia's space agency has said it believes fragments of the probe crashed Sunday into the Pacific Ocean, however the exact location where the probe crashed remained unclear on Monday.

"According to information from mission control of the military space forces, the fragments of Phobos Grunt should have fallen into the Pacific Ocean at 1745 GMT," space forces spokesman Alexei Zolotukhin told Interfax on Sunday.

However the deputy space agency chief Anatoly Shilov said in televised comments Monday that the agency expected the probe to have fallen on Brazil, although it had no witness accounts or other evidence.

It also remains unclear how much of the probe burned up in the atmosphere and which fragments then could have made contact with the surface of the Earth.

Roscosmos had predicted only 20 or 30 segments weighing no more than 200 kilogrammes (440 pounds) in total would survive the explosive re-entry and actually hit the Earth's surface.

Russian and NASA scientists have downplayed the risks posed by the fuel, predicting that it would burn up in the atmosphere before reaching the Earth's surface.

The unmanned $165 million vessel is one of the largest objects to re-enter the atmosphere since Russia brought down the Soviet-era Mir space station in 2001.

Sky gazers reported the gold-coloured vessel emitting a bright orange glow as it traversed the globe in an eastward direction between London to the north and New Zealand to the south.

The craft was loaded with 11,000 tonnes of toxic fuel -- enough to take it to Phobos -- as well as a Chinese satellite it had been due to put in orbit around Mars under a landmark deal with Beijing.

The probe's fatal end provides a bitter reminder for Russia of the prowess it has lost in the half-century since Yuri Gagarin's historic first space flight in 1961.

The accident represents one of the more high-profile mishaps in a year littered with unprecedented setbacks for the once-vaunted Russian space programme.

It struck less than three months after an unmanned Progress supply ship bound for the International Space Station crashed into Siberia.

Russia also lost three navigation satellites as well as an advanced military satellite and a telecommunications satellite in the past year.

Related Links
Space Technology News - Applications and Research




.
.
Get Our Free Newsletters Via Email
...
Buy Advertising Editorial Enquiries






.

. Comment on this article via your Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail login.

Share this article via these popular social media networks
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit GoogleGoogle



TECH SPACE
Space station to dodge superfast debris
Houston (UPI) Jan 13, 2012
The International Space Station will need to dodge a small but superfast piece of orbiting communication debris Friday morning, the U.S. Space Command said. The crew was to fire the Zvezda service module engines at 11:10 a.m. EST to avoid the 4-inch-diameter piece of a former communications satellite orbiting at very high speed in the space station's general direction, with "the potenti ... read more


TECH SPACE
Russia Mars probe 'crashes into Pacific': military

Russian Scientists Mock U.S. Radar Theory on Mars Probe

Another Russian Mars Mission Fails

Russia to Test if US Radar Caused Failed Space Probe

TECH SPACE
US Army Testing Demonstrates Readiness of Raytheon's MAINGATE Radio

Raytheon's Navy Multiband Terminal Tests With On-Orbit AEHF Satellite

Northrop Grumman And ITT Exelis Team For Army Vehicular Radio

Lockheed Martin Ships First Mobile User Objective System Satellite To Cape For Launch

TECH SPACE
SpaceX delays February flight to space stationl

Canaveral has busy 2012 launch schedule

China to launch Bolivian satellite in 2013: Chinese Ambassador

Ariane 5, Soyuz, Vega: Three world-changing launch vehicles

TECH SPACE
US Air Force Awards Lockheed Martin Contract for Third and Fourth GPS III Satellites

Raytheon to Develop Mission Critical Launch and Check Solution for Global Positioning System

First Galileo satellite GIOVE-A outlives design life to reach sixth anniversary

USAF Awards Contract to Lockheed Martin for GPS III Launch and Checkout Capability

TECH SPACE
JAL names ex-pilot as new president

India protests EU airline emissions tax

Airbus agrees A380 deal with Hong Kong Airlines: reports

Slovenian adventurer embarks on eco-friendly world trip

TECH SPACE
New microtweezers may build tiny 'MEMS' structures

High-speed CMOS sensors provide better images

Particle-free silver ink prints small, high-performance electronics

10-second dance of electrons is step toward exotic new computers

TECH SPACE
Half price DMCii 2011 country image pack in New Year sale

A step closer to mapping the Earth in 3D

Ziyuan III satellite sends back hi-res images

NASA Radar to Study Most Active Volcano On Hawaii

TECH SPACE
NIST releases 2 new SRMs for monitoring human exposure to environmental toxins

In tackling lead pollution, fungi may be our friends

Wood-burning stoves - harmful or safe?

Warnings of ecological timebomb after Tuscan ship wreck


.

The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2012 - Space Media Network. AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement