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After the post-launch problems of the Phobos-Grunt probe, which prevented it from starting its journey towards the Martian satellite Phobos, technicians at the Russian space agency Roscosmos didn't have much hope of preventing it re-entering the Earth's atmosphere. In fact, yesterday afternoon (17:45 GMT), just two months after launch, the probe fell to Earth, disintegrating almost completely.
According to Rascosmos, of the 14.9 tons of initial mass, only a couple of hundred kilos actually reached the Earth's surface, divided amongst 20-30 fragments. The impact zone was in the Pacific ocean, about 1250 km west of Wellington island, off the coast of Chile.
Until Saturday, the time of re-entry was very uncertain, estimated between 16:41 and 21:05 GMT, which left open the possibility of fragments falling on Argentina.
The main concern was the large quantity of fuel on the probe that was needed for its whole mission to and around the Mars system. The probe was designed to take samples from the surface of Phobos and return them to Earth. Though it was thought that the fuel would almost certainly burn off during re-entry it was less certain what would happen to the small amount of radioactive cobalt-57 on-board. Presumably it is now at the bottom of the sea.
The failure of the Phobos-Grunt mission is not just an economic loss (170 million dollars), but also a scientific loss, because the analysis of samples from Phobos would have given critical information on the formation of the whole solar system. Those that witnessed the re-entry said it was similar to that of the Soyuz rocket last month, shown in the photo.
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by Michele Ferrara & Marcel
Clemens |
credit: Roscosmos |
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