The return of xenophobia: Russia’s space agency has banned its employees from any foreign travel.
A Russian scientist has found large amounts of methane being released into the atmosphere in the Arctic, far more than previously predicted.
It is speculated that these releases are the result of the Earth’s warming climate during the past several hundred years. And because methane is a far more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, its release will feed into that warming.
Some English commentary from Russia: Phobos-Grunt: what’s in a name?
And this is the part when I point out that Russia’s unmanned Mars missions, which have not been successful so far, have a name problem that goes beyond Phobos-Grunt.
Mars-94? M1 No. 520? Seriously? What is this dour nonsense? Soyuz-Fregat was an improvement, but still, considering the consistent failure rate of the Mars missions, it’s time to get serious about breaking that curse. Take a page out of the Americans’ book, just this once, and inject some optimism into your space program. The Americans give their *successful* spacecraft names like Phoenix! And Spirit! And Opportunity! So name your spacecraft a variation on the word Hope! Throw caution to the wind and name it Kickass! Certainly don’t name it after terror, even if the satellite you plan on exploring is already stuck with that unfortunate name.
R.I.P.: Russian space engineer Boris Chertok has died at 99.
The European Space Agency will make two more attempts to contact Phobos-Grunt.
Phobos-Grunt is now predicted to fall back to Earth in early January.
The first female astronaut from Russia in decades might fly a six month mission to ISS in 2013.
Doomed: Phobos-Grunt now appears to be breaking up.
Phobos-Grunt has once again failed to respond to signals transmitted this week in an attempt to raise its orbit.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has raised the idea of criminal prosecution for those responsible for his country’s recent space failures.
The ESA tracking station that had made contact with Phobos-Grunt earlier this week failed repeatedly yesterday to re-establish contact.
An update on the efforts to save Phobos-Grunt.
“The first pass was successful in that the spacecraft’s radio downlink was commanded to switch on and telemetry was received,” said Wolfgang Hell, ESA’s Service Manager for Phobos–Grunt. Telemetry typically includes information on the status and health of a spacecraft’s systems. “The signals received from Phobos–Grunt were much stronger than those initially received on 22 November, in part due to having better knowledge of the spacecraft’s orbital position.”
The second pass was short, and so was used only to uplink commands – no receipt of signal was expected. However, the following three passes in the early morning of 24 November proved to be more difficult: no signal was received from Phobos–Grunt.
An ESA tracking station has once again contacted Phobos-Grunt, this time downloading telemetry data.
“We have again established contact with the Phobos-Grunt spacecraft, we obtained telemetry reports, they are being analyzed by our colleagues from the Lavochkin Research and Production Association,” ESA spokesman Rene Pischel said.
An ESA tracking station in Australia has made contact with Phobos-Grunt.
It appears that the chances of saving the spacecraft remain slim, though improved.
Russia is considering shifting its planetary research from Mars to the Moon, following the failure of the Phobos-Grunt mission to Mars.
Russian Soyuz capsule lands safely with three astronauts.
Soyuz with three astronauts undocks from ISS.
Is shooting down Phobos-Grunt an option?
The Soyuz capsule with three astronauts has successfully docked with ISS.
The head of the Russian space agency said yesterday that there is still a chance to save Phobos-Grunt.
“The probe is going to be in orbit until January, but in the first days of December the window will close” to re-programme it, he told Russian news agencies at Russia’s Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
He also said that the probe will not pose a threat, and will burn up in the atmosphere if it should fall to Earth.
A Soyuz rocket has successfully launched three astronauts into orbit.
This is the first manned launch since the shuttles were retired, and the first Russian manned mission since the failure of a Soyuz rocket in August. If all goes well, the astronauts will dock with ISS in two days.
The first manned Soyuz launch since the launch failure in August is set for Sunday night.
It now looks like the stranded and toxic Russian Mars probe, Phobos-Grunt, is likely aimed at Earth.
We are looking at an uncontrolled toxic reentry scenario. Phobos-Grunt . . . is fully-laden with unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide; that’s ten tons of fuel and oxidizer. The probe itself weighs-in at only three tons. . . . Phobos-Grunt’s batteries are draining and its orbit is degrading. It looks as if the probe will reenter later this month/early December. NORAD is putting a Nov. 26 reentry date on Phobos-Grunt.
It looks bad for Phobos-Grunt.
“Overnight, several attempts were made to obtain telemetric information from the probe. They all ended with zero result,” Interfax quoted a source in the Russian space sector as saying. “The probability of saving the probe is very, very small,” added the source, who was not identified.
Russia has two weeks to save Phobos-Grunt.
More info on the engine failure of Phobos-Grunt, and what might still be done to save the mission.
Phobos-Grunt appears to be in trouble in Earth orbit.
In a posting to an online forum for the Phobos-Grunt mission, Anton Ledkov of the Russian Space Research Institute reported that there was “no telemetry” from the spacecraft.
Another report suggests that a variety of engine thrusters did not fire as planned.
Russia heads for Mars: a detailed look at the Phobos/Grunt sample return mission, set to launch on November 8.
I really wish the Russians good luck with this project. Not only would it herald their return to planetary science since the fall of the Soviet Union, success here would break their long string of failures to the red planet. Though their unmanned planetary program had some remarkable achievements during the Soviet era, of the 19 missions they flew to Mars in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, all were failures, producing almost no useful data.
The 520-day simulated mission to Mars has been completed.
With the end of the Mar500 simulated mission this coming Friday, the Russians are now proposing an eighteen month simulated Mars mission on board the International Space Station.
The Russians have been pushing to do this on ISS for years. Unfortunately, NASA has always resisted.
Yet, as I wrote in Leaving Earth, we will never be able to send humans to any other planets until we have flown at least one simulated mission, in zero gravity in Earth orbit, beforehand. Wernher von Braun pointed out this reality out back in the 1950s, and that reality has not changed in the ensuing half century. Not only will such a mission tell us a great deal about the medical issues of living in weightlessness for years at a time — issues that are far from trivial — it will give us the opportunity to find out the engineering problems of building a vessel capable of keeping humans alive during interplanetary flight, far from Earth.
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