No discussion of the report? Or has everyone snuck off elsewhere?
Quote from: rdale on 02/04/2012 03:02 pmGot an English translation that is readable?What I am getting out of this clumsy translation is that the most likely underlying cause was some sort of failure of RAM modules due to cosmic charged particles, in other words electronics hardware which was not designed for spacecraft use.
Got an English translation that is readable?
Did Bad Memory Chips Down Russia’s Mars Probe?Moscow blames radiation wreckage on an SRAM chip, but does it add up?By James Oberg / February 2012 http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/space-flight/did-bad-memory-chips-down-russias-mars-probe 16 February 2012—The failure of Russia’s ambitious Phobos-Grunt sample-return probe has been shrouded in confusion and mystery, from the first inklings that something had gone wrong after its 9 November launch all the way to inconsistent reports of where it fell to Earth on 15 January.
A new approach to predicting spacecraft re-entry
If the official cause of the failure—... is not accurate, then remedial actions and get-well measures will be inappropriate and very possibly ineffective.
And, is there any guarantee they will be effective even IF the report IS accurate?? I would hate to bet on it.
Actually, there is: the example of the Bulava project fiasco and its rescue.
Quote from: JimO on 03/13/2012 11:26 amActually, there is: the example of the Bulava project fiasco and its rescue.First, this is a military project, not a spacecraft to Mars. Russians may have crude but working military hardware, their Martian hardware can't be classified as "crude but working" even by a super optimist.Second, this is just an example, an example of success is no guarantee of next success.