[meteorite-list] ESA Suspends Tracking Support to Phobos-Grunt

From: MexicoDoug <mexicodoug_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2011 18:28:39 -0500 (EST)
Message-ID: <8CE7F6141CA8C45-18A4-119D3_at_webmail-m158.sysops.aol.com>

How bitterly sad. I feel like we were about to catch a part of Phobos
in a fishing net, but the handle of the net was just a centimeter too
short or we didn't lunge far enough; and plop went the most exciting
sample return mission since Luna into the deep blue sea.

Then, we saw it under the water and tried again, but the refracted
handle caused a miss and to the bottom it spiralled down ... which will
be the case in a few months. It will be interesting to see who, if
anyone, steps forward to zap this while still aloft. My bet is on
China but that would be an interesting political situation since the
mission is Captained by Russia. ahh, what a loss.

How many more chances in our lifetimes? Real material from Phobos,
which from the beginning (I recall and someone may have referecnes) as
a child seeing Dad's Sky and Tel mags with Russian images of Phobos.
In a competitive world it was so interesting how the two early Space
pioneers, the USSR and the USA, divided up the Solar system for
exploration in such a peaceful manner and executed all the missions
with such pure hopes. I miss that competition, and hope the Russian
program can recover from this terrible setback. Losing the mass of
talent there is really a low point in space exploration, especially
seeing where the current East vs. West has ended up, no where near as
fun of a race for the home teams as before. How can we get this back?

Kindest wishes
Doug


-----Original Message-----
From: Ron Baalke <baalke at zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>
To: Meteorite Mailing List <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Fri, Dec 2, 2011 5:24 pm
Subject: [meteorite-list] ESA Suspends Tracking Support to Phobos-Grunt


http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Operations/SEMNEO2XFVG_2.html

ESA suspends tracking support to Russian Mars mission
European Space Agency
2 December 2011

In consultation and agreement with Phobos-Grunt mission managers, ESA
engineers will end tracking support today. Efforts in the past week to
send
commands to and receive data from the Russian Mars mission via ESA
ground
stations have not succeeded; no response has been seen from the
satellite.
ESA teams remain available to assist the Phobos-Grunt mission if
indicated
by any change in the situation.


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Received on Fri 02 Dec 2011 06:28:39 PM PST