Phobos-Grunt sur le départ

[Vincent Boudon]

Traduction des dernières nouvelles en russe mise sur ce forum américain :

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index. ... c=27289.15" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

We have time till January (inclusive), the SC will stay on orbit. But the launch window closes in early December.

There is still a chance but we still can't receive any telemetry to understand what happened. The problem is that tracking stations are slow and "Phobos" is on an unplanned trajectory, hence the communication session lasts for only 7 minutes.

All systems of the spacecraft work nominally, it has got sun orientation, so we do have chances. At the moment specialists (engineers) conduct attempts to upload software.

To answer journalists' questions when it would be possible to say about the "spacecraft death", he said "it would be possible to talk about it in early December when the launch window is closed. We can start the predictions of the end of "Phobos" when orbit degradation reaches 180km.

He has also rejected rumours that the spacecraft had constructive defects.

He has also highlighted the fact that there is no danger for Earth. There is no doubt that the spacecraft will explode upon the reenty (to the denser layers of atmosphere)

[Vincent Boudon]

Suite (même source) :

The problem is the band/range - all our stations were designed for far/distant space. Phobos-Grunt is on an unplanned orbit of approximately 200km. The comms session with each of the measurement stations doesn't exceed 2 minutes (CBased: Note, this is different from 7min in the previous article)

There are several actions underway. Firsly, it is the acceleration (speed up) of the turning mechanisms. Secondly, it (the SC) was designed to start working at a distance of tens of thousands of kilometers from Earth, so the power of transmitters were tuned accordingly. We were afraid to "burn" SC with such strong signal. That's why there will be some preparation activities that we need to do.

Currently the window has been made wider and the power of transmitters has been reduced. The same was done by our partners at ESA at their 2 stations. That's why I am saying that we still have chances.

[Isabelle Farcy-Lecat]

comme c'est rassurant de savoir qu'il explose en entrant dans l'atmosphére! mais le centre de gravité des morceaux continue la même trajectoire. Il faut espérer que ça facilite la combustion. A force de jouer ce petit jeu, même avec une faible probabilité de recevoir des morceaux, à force de multiplier les occurences, on finit par gagner.

[Vincent Boudon]

Un article très sévère dans Nature :

http://www.nature.com/news/russia-gets- ... ues-1.9361" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Isabelle Farcy-Lecat]

hé bien ça n'est pas rassurant du tout.

[Vincent Boudon]

L'ESA a réussi, pour la première fois depuis le lancement, à établir un contact avec la sonde :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15850516" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Ce qui ne veut pas dire qu'elle soit opérationnelle. Attendons les nouvelles ...

[Vincent Boudon]

L'amateur Ralf Vandebergh a pu prendre une image de Phobos-Grunt en orbite :

[thumb]http://freeimagehosting.nl/pics/126411b ... 8abb32.jpg[/thumb]

[Vincent Boudon]

D'autres ici :

http://www.startje.be/vieuw.php?qid=357824" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Vincent Boudon]

Ca continue :

[thumb]http://freeimagehosting.nl/pics/0d33879 ... 9da1be.jpg[/thumb]

Mais la sonde est toujours en perdition ...

[Vincent Boudon]

Épilogue ... Ce soir 15 janvier 20122, Phobos-Grunt est rentrée dans l'atmosphère et est tombée dans la Pacifique, à l'ouest du Chili.

Adieu, petits tardigrades