Author Topic: LIVE: Zenit-2SB launch with Phobos-Grunt - November 8, 2011  (Read 641521 times)

Offline Nickolai

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Re: LIVE: Zenit-2SB launch with Phobos-Grunt - November 8, 2011
« Reply #640 on: 11/10/2011 07:18 pm »
Who are Novosti Kosmonavtiki?

www.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/

Google couldn't answer that one for you?

Offline Chris Bergin

Who are Novosti Kosmonavtiki?

Russian space flight site, in Russian, been around a lot longer than NSF. Like we have a lot of NASA and such people on this site, they have a lot of Roscosmos and RSC Energia people.
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Offline JWag

Thank you to Chris for this excellent forum.  I am reading current updates on a Russian Mars mission, thanks to the generosity of Svetoslav, Vladi (and others!), all while sitting at my desk in the middle of the United States.  It is amazing.

All the best wishes to the engineers trying to recover the mission!

Offline Jim

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Re: LIVE: Zenit-2SB launch with Phobos-Grunt - November 8, 2011
« Reply #643 on: 11/10/2011 07:20 pm »

There are computers onboard ISS attached to this transceiver for the purpose of facilitating digital transmission modes.  I'm fairly certain, though not positive, that they are using QPSK as a digital mode, so it should be trivial to initiate communication to the spacecraft from ISS provided that it is visible and that ISS could reorient their antenna to track the spacecraft.

No, it isn't trivial, would need to be a repeater. Also the antenna can't be reoriented.

Offline apace

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Re: LIVE: Zenit-2SB launch with Phobos-Grunt - November 8, 2011
« Reply #644 on: 11/10/2011 07:22 pm »
No, it isn't trivial, would need to be a repeater. Also the antenna can't be reoriented.
[/quote]

In Hollywood, some crazy russian kosmonaut will take the soyuz, fly to the fobos-grunt and kick it to mars ;-)

Offline baldusi

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Re: LIVE: Zenit-2SB launch with Phobos-Grunt - November 8, 2011
« Reply #645 on: 11/10/2011 07:23 pm »
Thank you to Chris for this excellent forum.  I am reading current updates on a Russian Mars mission, thanks to the generosity of Svetoslav, Vladi (and others!), all while sitting at my desk in the middle of the United States.  It is amazing.

All the best wishes to the engineers trying to recover the mission!
And that's from countries with actual LV and space stations! Think of the rest of the world that this helps us get to this industry. A world that would have been basically denied to us.

Offline kaptein80

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Re: LIVE: Zenit-2SB launch with Phobos-Grunt - November 8, 2011
« Reply #646 on: 11/10/2011 07:25 pm »
The inevitable has happened. People have started talking about being fired and resignations...

http://interfax.ru/politics/news.asp?id=216291

According to an anonymous expert in the space industry the failure with Phobos-Grunt unties the hands of the leadership of the space industry to reform it. Also, many people may lose their jobs.

Another article, on RIA Novosti, mentions that astronomers will try to evaluate the status of the spacecraft

There should be a reform in the execution of the projects and resignation at managment level but I would say what has happened is a valuable know-how at the engineering level. The industry learns from the mistakes. Looking fordward to see future russian interplanetary spacecrafts.

Offline Skylab

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Re: LIVE: Zenit-2SB launch with Phobos-Grunt - November 8, 2011
« Reply #647 on: 11/10/2011 07:30 pm »
USAF still maintains the Maui Optical Station?  Surely its telescope could (at a minimum) determine whether FG is tumbling or stabilized, the deployment status of the solar panels, etc?
Their official website won't respond properly, but they did hold a conference last September, so it's likely still operational:
http://www.amostech.com/

Offline jimvela

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Re: LIVE: Zenit-2SB launch with Phobos-Grunt - November 8, 2011
« Reply #648 on: 11/10/2011 07:47 pm »
USAF still maintains the Maui Optical Station?  Surely its telescope could (at a minimum) determine whether FG is tumbling or stabilized, the deployment status of the solar panels, etc?

There are far better assets available for that purpose.

EXTREMELY unlikely that they would be tasked to look at this mission in a publicly available way.

Offline mr. mark

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Re: LIVE: Zenit-2SB launch with Phobos-Grunt - November 8, 2011
« Reply #649 on: 11/10/2011 07:55 pm »

Offline Svetoslav

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Re: LIVE: Zenit-2SB launch with Phobos-Grunt - November 8, 2011
« Reply #650 on: 11/10/2011 08:09 pm »
A very interesting article on RIA appeared just now, I don't have time to translate it, unfortunately:

http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fria.ru%2Fscience%2F20111111%2F485978528.html

Offline Svetoslav

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Re: LIVE: Zenit-2SB launch with Phobos-Grunt - November 8, 2011
« Reply #651 on: 11/10/2011 08:25 pm »
According to info I have from Astronomy.ru forum - the two attempts to turn on the transmitter have been unsuccessful so far

Offline mr. mark

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Offline Svetoslav

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Re: LIVE: Zenit-2SB launch with Phobos-Grunt - November 8, 2011
« Reply #653 on: 11/10/2011 08:34 pm »
My information was confirmed by Anatoly Zak:

http://www.russianspaceweb.com/phobos_grunt_launch.html

Around 23:00 Moscow Time, Phobos-Grunt reappeared over Baikonur and, according to some unofficial reports, ground controllers send a signal to activate probe's onboard transmitter, which was designed for radiomeasurements of its trajectory. The command was apparently sent directly to the device, bypassing other systems. However, yet again, no carrier signal from the transmitter was heard back. Further attempts were promised over the night.

Online sdsds

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Re: LIVE: Zenit-2SB launch with Phobos-Grunt - November 8, 2011
« Reply #654 on: 11/10/2011 08:51 pm »
USAF still maintains the Maui Optical Station?  Surely its telescope could (at a minimum) determine whether FG is tumbling or stabilized, the deployment status of the solar panels, etc?

There are far better assets available for that purpose.

EXTREMELY unlikely that they would be tasked to look at this mission in a publicly available way.

Ah, yes.  Thank you sir for that observation and assessment!  Restating this a bit, more capable assets now perform the kinds of tasks for which the Maui station was constructed.  For Fobos-Grunt though, we can pretty much assume information from those more capable assets is ... not available.

But were you intending to say it is unlikely the Maui telescope would be used for FG?  There are many fewer obstacles that would make Maui-derived imagery unavailable to the Russian space agency or to the general public.  And the Maui telescope is likely sufficient for this purpose, as the attached image of STS-107 demonstrates....

Another article, on RIA Novosti, mentions that astronomers will try to evaluate the status of the spacecraft

Can anyone assess the capabilities of the optical assets directly available to the Russians?
— 𝐬𝐝𝐒𝐝𝐬 —

Offline JimO

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Re: LIVE: Zenit-2SB launch with Phobos-Grunt - November 8, 2011
« Reply #655 on: 11/10/2011 09:04 pm »
My translation of a story that just moved:

Source: The fate of the probe ‘Phobos-Grunt’ will be settled in the next few hours
On November 11, 2011, : 00:51 Moscow Time [20:51 gmt]
http://vz.ru/news/2011/11/11/537691.html

The fate of the automatic interplanetary station “‘Phobos-Grunt’, with which communications have not succeeded in being established, will be decided in the next few hours, a source in the rocket-space branch figures.

“After a certain time ‘Phobos-Grunt’ will fly above Baikonur and they will attempt to establish connection with it again. If this next attempt ends unsuccessfully, for all practical purposes there will not remain hopes for the rescuing of the apparatus”, said the source.

According to him, even in the case of failure, Russian specialists will further continue attempts to establish connection with the apparatus, and European associates will continue to help them in this, in the hope for a miracle.

“To Roskosmos, especially after the emergencies of rocket-space technology, which occurred this year, it is simply necessary to preserve face before the world community; therefore they will undertake newer and newer attempts “to revive” ‘Phobos-Grunt’, said the expert.

He noted that the failure with the launch of the interplanetary space station shows [the country’s [?]] complete noncompetitiveness in the creation of new rocket-space technology. “The nickname ‘space coachman’, resting on the Soviet leftovers, will be fastened to us still more”, said the source, reports “Interfax”.

As the newspaper Vzglyad reported, previously Pishel described that ESA attempted to obtain information at the spaceport of Kourou in French Guiana and in Australia from “‘Phobos-Grunt’”, but the attempts were not crowned with success.

It became later known that astronomers with the aid of the optical means will attempt to determine in what position the automatic interplanetary station “Phoebus- ground” is located.

The former chief specialist of armed forces RF in space Vladimir [Uvarov] noted on Thursday that the interplanetary space station, probable, can no longer be saved. However, some specialists still hope for the continuation of the mission “of Phoebus- ground”.

Let us recall that the cost of project was about 5 billion rubles, or about 120 million Euros.

Offline jimvela

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Re: LIVE: Zenit-2SB launch with Phobos-Grunt - November 8, 2011
« Reply #656 on: 11/10/2011 09:13 pm »
But were you intending to say it is unlikely the Maui telescope would be used for FG?  There are many fewer obstacles that would make Maui-derived imagery unavailable to the Russian space agency or to the general public.  And the Maui telescope is likely sufficient for this purpose, as the attached image of STS-107 demonstrates....

I don't pretend to understand or comprehend politics or political processes, so I don't know how to answer that.

I'm sure that if the Russians formally requested the help of the US Government, that many things could be done to image this mission.

I suspect that the politics of saving face will prevent that from ever happening.

I'd also bet heavily that all of the nations with space observing capability are already using this opportunity to test their capabilities on a distressed mission as an exercise of these capabilities.

Offline agman25

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Re: LIVE: Zenit-2SB launch with Phobos-Grunt - November 8, 2011
« Reply #657 on: 11/10/2011 09:14 pm »
I have a overhead pass tomorrow PM and a good set of binoculars. Anything I can do?

Offline daver

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Re: LIVE: Zenit-2SB launch with Phobos-Grunt - November 8, 2011
« Reply #658 on: 11/10/2011 09:23 pm »
Does the X-37B have any relay capability?  I know that's classified but just throwing it out there.   They are both pretty much over Australia right now. ???

 http://www.n2yo.com/?s=37872

http://heavens-above.com/orbit.aspx?satid=37375&lat=0&lng=0&loc=Unspecified&alt=0&tz=CET

Offline hop

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Re: LIVE: Zenit-2SB launch with Phobos-Grunt - November 8, 2011
« Reply #659 on: 11/10/2011 09:39 pm »
Does the X-37B have any relay capability?  I know that's classified but just throwing it out there.
If a 10+ meter dishes on the ground with many kw of transmit power can't do it, it's extremely unlikely that some dinky radio on a spacecraft would do better, even if it were theoretically possible.

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