In the latest setback for the Russian Federal Space Agency, Rocosmos, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced yesterday that it wasgiving up all future attempts to contact the errant Russian Mars probe, Phobos-Grunt, which has been stuck in low-Earth orbit for nearly a month after a rocket failure resulted in an Earth orbit rather than a trip to the Red Planet.
For the nearly month-long limbo that Phobos-Grunt has found itself in, one problem stood above all others: contacting the probe in the first place.
When launched, Phobos-Grunt was to stay in Earth orbit for a short while, building up speed so that, when the designated time arrived, a rocket booster would fire, propelling the probe out of Earth's grip and toward Mars. Unfortunately, the booster failure left Phobos-Grunt in an awkward position with its receptor antenna pointed away from Earth, hence the problem of contacting it. On November 22, contact was briefly established to Earth via the ESA, but has failed to be made since then. Result, the ESA is, after nearly 2 weeks of fruitless trying, giving up all future attempts to contact Phobos-Grunt.
End result, things are looking extremely bleak. If contact cannot be established, not even one of the alternate missions to another space body will be able to be conducted and, in time, the orbit occupied by Phobos-Grunt will decay, resulting in an uncontrolled, potentially toxic atmospheric re-entry.
For more info:
Russian President threatens punishment for space failures
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