Fobos-Grunt EOM Re-Entry Latest

[JimO]

'Russia Today' news report -- see -- describes conflicting views.

Federal Space Agency deputy head Anatoly Shilov told Rossiya-2, quoted in Interfax report of 08:05 gmt today, "The rover disintegrated at the altitude of ten kilometers above Brazil. That was the presumed location, so reports that the rover broke up there were a theory. There is no visual or other confirmation to that because nobody watched the rover falling into pieces."

An Interfax report at 06:05 gmt, in English, carefully described Zolotukhin's words this way: "According to the estimated data of the Main Center for Space Reconnaissance of the Aerospace Defense Troops, the Phobos-Grunt fragments were to fall into the Pacific Ocean at 9:45 p.m. Moscow time."

NY Times report: "Col. Aleksei Zolotukhin, a spokesman for Russia’s Aerospace Defense Troops, told the Interfax news agency that the spacecraft, which broke up in the atmosphere, hit the water in fragments around 12:45 p.m. Eastern time. " We have established that Zolotukhin never made that absolute claim. Shame on NY Times.

Associated Press latest report [1126gmt today]: "News agencies had cited Defense Ministry spokesman Alexei Zolotukhin as saying Sunday that fragments of the craft fell in the Pacific Ocean off Chile's coast. But Zolotukhin told The Associated Press Monday that estimate was based on calculations, and no witness reports had been received." Precisely! Kudos to AP!!

[Thomas ESA]

ESA is about to confirm the re-entry location.

Update on Phobos-Grunt reentry
 
16 January 2012   An update on Phobos-Grunt reentry from ESA's Space Debris Office, including an analysis on the reentry time and location, will be available shortly.

[JimO]

ESA is about to confirm the re-entry location.

Update on Phobos-Grunt reentry
 
16 January 2012   An update on Phobos-Grunt reentry from ESA's Space Debris Office, including an analysis on the reentry time and location, will be available shortly.

Based on what sensors?

[JimO]

Roskosmos is now claiming it was the victim of a 'Denial of Service' attack against its website this morning. Always somebody else's fault, I guess [but this one might be true, maybe...].

[kevin-rf]

You know what I am really curious about (and we will never get an answer to), is with all the fuel aboard, if the DSP's senor's saw a brighter than normal reentry as all that fuel burned... I'm sure it's mercury cadmium telluride eye's warmed to the sight.

[Chris Bergin]

Still nothing more than the "coming soon" on the ESA site.

[Chris Bergin]

Still Pacific Ocean as far as Roscosmos.

"@BBCAmos Jonathan Amos
Roscosmos has finally posted on its website the time of 21:45 (Moscow) for the re-entry of Phobos-Grunt on Sunday."

Nothing from ESA yet.

[pippin]

Does anybody know what this image shows?
http://cdn4.spiegel.de/images/image-303633-galleryV9-nzpi.jpg
German media show it as a "radar image" of Phobos Grunt during decay but it doesn't really look like that.

[rdale]

Just a pic from a few days prior, scroll back in the thread and it's linked there too.

[deaville]

Not understanding these things - does this mean it's safe to come out from under the table and take my tin hat off? 

[Comga]

Just a pic from a few days prior, scroll back in the thread and it's linked there too.

Can you point to where it was linked?  I just searched all the way back, and can't find this specific "spiegel" link.

[pippin]

Just a pic from a few days prior, scroll back in the thread and it's linked there too.

This thread? Are you sure? I'm pretty sure I looked up more or less every link in this thread before posting and didn't see it.

[AnalogMan]

Does anybody know what this image shows?
http://cdn4.spiegel.de/images/image-303633-galleryV9-nzpi.jpg
German media show it as a "radar image" of Phobos Grunt during decay but it doesn't really look like that.

Original image was posted here:

http://www.fraunhofer.de/de/fraunhofer-forschungsthemen/schutz-sicherheit/infrastruktur-schuetzen/phobos-grunt.html

Machine translation of the caption reads:

"Current radar picture of the Mars probe Phobos-grunt created with the space observation radar of TIRA. You can see clearly the folded out solar panels (Center) and the tank ring (below). © Fraunhofer FHR"

[olasek]

Does anybody know what this image shows?

It shows exactly what it says it shows - the radar image.
I hope no one thinks that this is Phobos-Grunt 'on-fire' during reentry.

[pippin]

No, but it looks so stretched.

[sdsds]

@esaoperations tweets:
Formal update in ESA web on #phobosgrunt reentry will come only Tuesday 17.01. Team waiting for one final set of estimates. Regret delay.

[JimO]

This is ALL OVER the Russian mass media...

05:19 17/01/2012 // http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c32/317667.html

US radar could unintentionally trigger Phobos failure - daily

[MATTBLAK]

So Russia has no similar Radar system that could do likewise to American spacecraft?!

The fact that the whole, sad ending to this spacecraft strongly echoes the 1996 failure - is no one over there even alluding to that?

[Ben the Space Brit]

The fact that the whole, sad ending to this spacecraft strongly echoes the 1996 failure - is no one over there even alluding to that?

State control of media is much stronger in Russia than many people realise.  The media follow official talking points, not inconvenient facts.  The People cannot possibly be trusted with the facts as they might develop opinions that The Elite do not want them to have.  Oh, The Powers Than Be might be engaged in a Snipe Hunt for those responsible but there could not possibly be a public admission of a fault in a flagship industrial sector like aerospace.  No, it is the fault of "foreign forces" and anonymous slander will be publicised as if it is proven fact.

What I find interesting is the way the Russian media is mis-reporting official statements (such as those of the head of Roscosmos) to fit in with the 'foreign sabotoeur' meme.  I'm not sure if that is a case of central control of just 'tell them what they want to hear' (which we sometimes get in the West too).

[Chris Bergin]

Let's focus on the information and less of the backslapping about how wonderful we are compared to Russia, because there's enough Fox News or BBC (under Greg "I kinda like the Taliban" Dyke) examples for a lot of the Russian state media example.

Reason #8525 to hate politics.