A model of the Phobos-Grunt probe which is thought to have crashed into the Pacific Ocean early this morning.
Credit: Flickr; MKonair
SYDNEY: In a spectacular end to a failed mission, pieces of Russian spacecraft Phobos-Grunt appear to have crashed into the Pacific Ocean in the early hours of this morning.
The unmanned US$165 million Phobos-Grunt, launched on 9 November 2011, was intended to fly towards Mars and return with a sample from the surface of Phobos, one Mars' moons. The spacecraft was launched successfully, but a rocket malfunction failed to set the probe on a course to Mars, leaving the spacecraft stranded in a low Earth orbit.
According to information from mission control of the space forces, the fragments of Phobos-Grunt should have fallen into the Pacific Ocean at 1745 GMT (approximately 4:45am Sydney time)," said Phobos-Grunt spokesman Alexei Zolotukhin.
Problems with Phobos-Grunt re-entry
Russian space agency Roscosmos announced the as-yet-unconfirmed oceanic splashdown with some relief, with concerns that the craft could have crashed somewhere in South America. Phobos-Grunt is one of largest objects to re-enter the atmosphere since the Russian Soviet-era Mir space station was brought down in 2001.
There was some concern about the amount of toxic fuel on board the spacecraft, but space archaeologist Alice Gorman from Flinders University in South Australia said it most likely burned up during re-entry. "The fuel tanks, according to the Russian space agency, are made of aluminium [and] more than 50% of all re-entered spacecraft material is titanium, beryllium or steel, which has a melting point twice that of aluminium, so the likelihood of the fuel tanks surviving is very low," she said.
"The fuel is reported to be hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide, which boil at 113°C and 21°C respectively, so it will evaporate at high altitude once the tanks go."
Gorman said that only a small amount of the spacecraft likely made it through the destructive re-entry. "If anything is likely to survive the fall to Earth it's the 11 kg return capsule, which has a heat shield and was of course designed for re-entry," she said on Friday. "Now it's still attached to the entire spacecraft, so how it will fare is hard to say [but] I'd guess not very well."
Mission failure
In addition to returning with surface samples from Phobos, the spacecraft was supposed to launch the Chinese Yinghuo-1 probe into an orbit around Mars, which turned into a disappointing start for China's exploration of Mars.
The doomed spacecraft was also carrying a tiny LIFE (Living Interplanetary Flight Experiment) biomodule on board, funded by the Planetary Society in the U.S. "What we've seen is heartbreaking reinforcement of an oft-repeated maxim. Space is hard! We are disappointed that our remarkable test of the hardiness of living organisms will not get the 34 months in deep space we had hoped for," said Bill Nye from the Planetary Society. "Still, we are very proud to have been a part of this mission."
