Launch News (Failure) Phobos-Grunt and YingHuo-1 atop Zenit-2 on November 8/9, 2011

[SiberianTiger]

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Operations/SEM4NEZW5VG_0.html

ESA's 15m tracking station, Perth, Australia

ESA tracking station establishes contact with Russia’s Mars mission

23 November 2011
On Tuesday, 22 November at 20:25 GMT, ESA's tracking station at Perth, Australia, established contact with Russia's Phobos-Grunt spacecraft. Contact with the Mars mission was lost shortly after separation from the launch vehicle was confirmed on 8 November.

Following liftoff, the spacecraft was injected into low-Earth orbit in preparation for departure to Mars. Immediately after separation of the spacecraft and its modified Fregat stage from the launcher, controllers received signals confirming deployment of the solar panels.

Two automated burns of the Fregat engine were to have taken place beyond coverage of Russian ground stations, boosting it onto an interplanetary trajectory for the Red Planet. These failed to happen and contact was lost from that moment. However, observations showed that the craft was in a controlled attitude orbiting Earth between about 200 km and 340 km altitude.

ESA responds to Russian request for assistance

Upon request from NPO Lavochkin, operator of the mission on behalf of the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, ESA agreed to do its utmost to attempt contact using the Agency’s ground station network.

Starting on 9 November, and in close coordination with Russian engineers, ESA made almost daily attempts to contact Phobos-Grunt using numerous configurations and radio link modes, but to no avail.

A major problem was that the spacecraft's orbit was not accurately known, whereas ground stations normally require very accurate position information for pointing due to the antenna size.

In the past few days, ESA's 15 m-diameter Perth dish was modified by the addition of a 'feedhorn' antenna at the side of the main dish so as to transmit very low-power signals over a wide angle in the hopes of triggering a response from the satellite.

View of the Perth 15m antenna showing the feedhorn antenna mounted near the small, 1.3m search antenna, both mounted at the side of the main dish. The mini-antenna was used to send telecommands to Russia's Phobos-Grunt mission in Earth orbit on 22 November 2011.

The transmit power was reduced in part because the receiver on Phobos-Grunt is optimised to receive only very weak signals when deep in space.

Perth is ideally located because the satellite's solar panels were illuminated by sunlight when overhead, giving a power boost to its systems.


ESA station in Australia transmits Russian telecommands

On 22 November, the Perth station antenna was pointed toward the spacecraft's expected orbital position during 20:21–20:28 GMT, and telecommands provided by NPO Lavochkin were transmitted.

"Owing to its very low altitude, it was expected that our station would only have Phobos-Grunt in view for six to ten minutes during each orbit, and the fast overhead pass introduced large variations in the signal frequency," said Wolfgang Hell, the Phobos-Grunt Service Manager at ESOC.

Hard work pays off

Despite these difficulties, it was a success: the signals commanded the spacecraft's transmitter to switch on, sending a signal down to the station's 15 m dish antenna.

Data received from Phobos-Grunt were then transmitted from Perth to Russian mission controllers via ESA's Space Operations Centre, Darmstadt, Germany, for analysis.


Additional communication slots are available on 23 November at 20:21–20:28 GMT and 21:53–22:03 GMT, and ESA teams are working closely with Russian controllers to determine how best to maintain communication with their spacecraft.


More news will follow as the situation develops.

 

[statickid]

*crosses fingers* I will be very impressed if they rescue the mission. I hate to see a good payload go down.

 

[Scruce]

* Scruce has his fingers crossed!

 

[Jarvitä]

The suspense is killing me.

Hopefully it perform the ejection burn this weekend and race MSL to Mars.

 

[Alfastar]

*crosses fingers* Good luck P-G.

May the probe give you luck.

 

[Napalm42]

Hail Probe!

You can do it little guy.

 

[Izack]

Best of luck to the PhG team. You can do this, guys!

 

[MaverickSawyer]

 

[N_Molson]

If they can receive and send signals, there is hope. But the clock is running !

 

[Urwumpe]

ESA: привет!
Фобос-Грунт:привет.
ESA: Передача телеметрических!
Фобос-Грунт: Нет.
ESA: Передача телеметрических!
Фобос-Грунт: Нет.
ESA: Передача телеметрических!
Фобос-Грунт: Нет.
ESA: Передача телеметрических!
Фобос-Грунт: Нет.
ESA: Передача телеметрических!
Фобос-Грунт: Вы забыли волшебное слово!

 

[Scruce]

ESA: привет!
Фобос-Грунт:привет.
ESA: Передача телеметрических!
Фобос-Грунт: Нет.
ESA: Передача телеметрических!
Фобос-Грунт: Нет.
ESA: Передача телеметрических!
Фобос-Грунт: Нет.
ESA: Передача телеметрических!
Фобос-Грунт: Нет.
ESA: Передача телеметрических!
Фобос-Грунт: Никогда не вернуться.

Rough translation:

ESA: hello!
Phobos-Grunt: Hi.
ESA: The transfer of telemetry!
Phobos-Grunt: None.
ESA: The transfer of telemetry!
Phobos-Grunt: None.
ESA: The transfer of telemetry!
Phobos-Grunt: None.
ESA: The transfer of telemetry!
Phobos-Grunt: None.
ESA: The transfer of telemetry!
Phobos-Grunt: Never to return.

Is this a bad sign for Phobos-Grunt? :blink:

 

[Izack]

Rough translation:

Is this a bad sign for Phobos-Grunt? :blink:

The final PhG line was edited to say something like "You said please don't."

 

[diogom]

Something like:

? :rofl: (scene from Jurassic Park)

Come on PhG, don't you dare burn up!

 

[Urwumpe]

The final PhG line was edited to say something like "You said please don't."

Yes, I wasn't happy with the initial one, because I couldn't even laugh about it myself. :facepalm:

 

[Artlav]

The shy probe wanted to clarify something, and stayed in orbit.
But instead of an answer in come a torrent of swear words at interplanetary volume.
So the poor thing gone into a depression and refused to respond.
Then, australians gently asked it "how are you", and it wholeheartedly replied.

Now all we need to do is to ask it, politely, to go to Mars.

Вы сказали, пожалуйста, не.

"You please said no".
What did you meant to say?

 

[Urwumpe]

What did you meant to say?

"You didn't say "Please"." :facepalm:

 

[SiberianTiger]

ESA: привет!
Фобос-Грунт:привет.
ESA: Передача телеметрических!
Фобос-Грунт: Нет.
ESA: Передача телеметрических!
Фобос-Грунт: Нет.
ESA: Передача телеметрических!
Фобос-Грунт: Нет.
ESA: Передача телеметрических!
Фобос-Грунт: Нет.
ESA: Передача телеметрических!
Фобос-Грунт: Вы сказали, пожалуйста, не.

comms slot 1:

ESA: Привет! (Hi!)
Phobos-Grunt: Привет. (Hi!)
ESA: Передай телеметрию! (Transmit telemetry!)
Phobos-Grunt: .
ESA: Передай телеметрию!
Phobos-Grunt: .
ESA: Передай телеметрию!
Phobos-Grunt: .
ESA: Передай телеметрию, пожалуйста! (Transmit telemetry, please!)
Phobos-Grunt: .
<end of comms slot 1...>

1.5 hours later, comms slot 2:

ESA channel: Привет! (Hi!)
Phobos-Grunt: Отвали. (bug off)
ESA channel: Передай телеметрию! (Transmit telemetry!)
Phobos-Grunt: .
ESA channel: Поповкин на проводе, Космос-2474, доложить телеметрию, ! (Popovkin speaking, Cosmos-2474, report telemetry Now, !)
Phobos-Grunt: Слушаюсь, товарищ генерал армии! Есть доложить телеметрию! (Roger, Comrade General of Army! Yessir, reporting telemetry now!...)
Phobos-Grunt: 10000101110101001001000101010110111...

 

[Artlav]

"You didn't say "Please"." :facepalm:

Вы забыли волшебное слово! (You didn't say the magic word!)
or
А "пожалуйста" кто говорить будет? (Who should say please?)
or, literally
Вы не сказали "пожалуйста".

 

[SiberianTiger]

NK forum (attention! unconfirmed info!):
http://www.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=844402#844402

There's link, there's telemetry.

 

[orb]

RIA Novosti says the same (in Russian):
http://ria.ru/science/20111124/496387514.html