Contact has finally been made with Russia's troubled Mars mission, says the European Space Agency (Esa).
The agency reports that its tracking station in Perth, Australia, picked up a signal from the Phobos-Grunt probe.
Esa is now working with Russian engineers to see how best to maintain communications with the craft.
Phobos-Grunt has been stuck in Earth orbit since its launch on 9 November, unable to fire the engine that would take it on to Mars.
It raises the hope that Russian controllers can establish what is wrong with the spacecraft and fix it.
Phobos-Grunt still has a short window in which to start its journey before a change in the alignment of the planets produces a gap between the Red Planet and Earth that is too big to cross.
The European Space Operations Centre (Esoc) in Darmstadt reports that the contact was made at 2025 GMT on Tuesday. A spokesman said some modifications had been to the 15m dish facility in Perth to improve its chances of getting a signal.
He confirmed that telemetry from Phobos-Grunt was received, and that this data was passed straight to the Russians.
Diagnose problemsThe probe was built to land on the larger of Mars' two moons, Phobos, and scoop up rock to bring back to Earth.
Such a venture should yield fascinating new insights into the origin of the 27km-wide object and the planet it circles.
The mission is also notable because China's first Mars satellite, Yinghuo-1, has been launched piggy-back on the main Russian spacecraft.
The 13-tonne mission was initially lifted into a 350km-high orbit above Earth, with the expectation that the probe's big engine would fire twice - first, to raise that orbit, and, second, to set course for Mars.
But for some reason, those engine burns never happened, and Phobos-Grunt has continued to circle the Earth. All efforts to talk with it have failed - until now.
Fortunately, the probe has managed to maintain itself in a stable condition. The perigee of its elliptical orbit (the closest point it comes to Earth) has actually risen slightly, and is just above 200km.
If engineers can keep a communication line open to the craft, they can begin to diagnose its problems.
The best scenario is that the issues are related to a software anomaly, and that engineers can then upload new commands.
But if the fault lies in a hardware malfunction, Phobos-Grunt may still be beyond hope.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/science-environment-15850516
mcrib pumpkin seeds mark herzlich malawi malawi angela davis angela davis
No comments:
Post a Comment