Phobos-Grunt Update - Promising News!

After more than two weeks stuck in Earth orbit, Russian flight engineers have finally made contact with the Phobos-Grunt spacecraft.  In a last ditch effort to save the 165 million dollar mission, the Russian space agency, Roskosmos, elicited the help of the European Space Agency and attempted to contact Phobos-Grunt using ground station antennas in Perth, Australia.  Miraculously, contact with the ill-fated spacecraft was established.  After several more passes over Perth, telemetry data was downloaded, and Russian engineers began deciphering the coded data.  Why, exactly, contact couldn't be made up until now isn't yet known, however it appears that the solar arrays of the spacecraft were in an optimal position while it was over Perth, and the extra energy generated allowed for Phobos-Grunt to communicate with Earth.  It still remains unclear what exactly caused the failure of the orbital engine burns, but further analysis of the data and continued contact with the spacecraft will most likely allow engineers to discover the problem.

Phobos-Grunt mission poster (Roskosmos).

Now the question becomes - if Phobos-Grunt can be saved, what to do with it?  The window to send the spacecraft to Mars appears to now be closed, although some debate on this matter remains.  If, indeed, it is too late to try for Mars, the mission may still be salvaged.  One option is to keep the spacecraft in Earth orbit for another two years, until the launch window for Mars again opens, and then send it on its way.  Although, there may not be enough fuel on board for this.  The other option is to completely change the mission objectives, and send the spacecraft to a near Earth asteroid.  The parameters of the mission would essentially be the same, as Phobos is thought to be an asteroid that was captured by Mars's gravity.  So landing on an asteroid, and launching the soil recovery capsule, wouldn't be outside the abilities of the spacecraft.  However, it would take new software and new calculations, and a completely new flight path - and that too could take some time.  Of course any of these options require that enough data can be downloaded from the spacecraft to isolate the initial problem, and then that problem must be fixed.

If Phobos-Grunt cannot be salvaged, it will burn up upon re-entry into Earth's atmosphere on or about January 15th, 2012.  Read more here.