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

[SiberianTiger]

Pictures from Phobos-Grunt display session held for Media by NPO Lavockhin on September 22nd in Khimki:

Academician Lev Zelyony tells reporters about the project's cost (5 billion roubles were mentioned, including cost of the probe itself: 1 billion roubles) and aims:

Is it a doorway to Khartov's office? :blink:

 

[Wishbone]

Re: door - most probably it's the wardrobe for his clothes change on-site.

 

[orb]

Fregat stage (Main Propulsion Unit / MDU) for the Phobos-Grunt has been delivered to Baikonur today. (Source in Russian)

 

[SiberianTiger]

Primary launch date is set to November 8th, 00:16 MSK (Nov 7th, 20:16 UTC).

Launch will be possible within window: 5.11.2011-14.11.2011

 

[orb]

Universe Today: Daring Russian Sample Return mission to Martian Moon Phobos aims for November Liftoff

 

[orb]

Universe Today: Phobos-Grunt: The Mission Poster

 

[SiberianTiger]

Universe Today: Phobos-Grunt: The Mission Poster

There are more pics; I'm busy layering over English captions on them.

 

[SiberianTiger]

http://www.laspace.ru/rus/news.php

17.10.2011
Phobos-Grunt is sent to Baikonur

Today's morning, a plane carrying Phobos-Grunt spacecraft departed from Sheremetyevo airport near Moscow and took heading to Baikonur. The spacecraft will be delivered today and subsequent launch preparation campaign aiming to the beginning of November will start.

 

[orb]

There are more pics; I'm busy layering over English captions on them.

These?

17.10.2011
Phobos-Grunt is sent to Baikonur

Phobos-Grunt arrived at Baikonur:

Source: Roscosmos - Автоматическая межпланетная станция «Фобос-Грунт» доставлена на космодром Байконур (in Russian)

 

[SiberianTiger]

These?

yes.

 

[SiberianTiger]

By the way, Phobos-Grunt has got a homepage, but it seems to be at embryo stage of development, as of now. It has a launch countdown counter, though.

http://phobos.cosmos.ru/index.php?id=285&L=2

BTW, it's officially Phobos-Soil, but I think "Grunt" is a very nice transliteration nevertheless.

 

[Wishbone]

Note they have SPICE kernels for hard-core modellers... (http://phobos.cosmos.ru/index.php?id=1681&L=2&tx-filelist-pi1-3779[path]=kernels/spk)

 

[SiberianTiger]

Note they have SPICE kernels for hard-core modellers... (http://phobos.cosmos.ru/index.php?id=1681&L=2&tx-filelist-pi1-3779[path]=kernels%2Fspk)

What's a SPICE, by the way?

 

[Wishbone]

SPICE is a mighty toolkit by the JPL (http://naif.jpl.nasa.gov , currently maintained by one Boris Semenov ) which includes high-fidelity formats for data coming from satellites and probes. It allows access to and manipulation of scientific instrument position, velocity and attitude data, taking care of numerous reference frame transformations and corrections. Only a small part of SPICE toolkit has been incorporated into Orbiter so far (Ajaja did it for the celestial body ephemerides)...

 

[orb]

A couple of Phobos-Grunt photos from Roscosmos:

Source: Фоторепортаж об установке автоматической межпланетной станции «Фобос-Грунт» в стенд и начале испытаний


Universe Today: Phobos-Grunt and Yinghou-1 Arrive at Baikonur Launch Site to tight Mars Deadline

 

[SiberianTiger]

Video of the same thing:

 

[orb]

Universe Today: Russia Fuels Phobos-Grunt and sets Mars Launch for November 9

 

[orb]

A couple of images from preparations of Phobos-Grunt:

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Source: Roscosmos: Фоторепортаж о подготовке автоматической межпланетной станции "Фобос-Грунт" к запуску (in Russian)

 

[orb]

Discovery News: Russia Aims For Mars Moon

 

[orb]

Encapsulating

Encapsulating:

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Source: Roscosmos: Завершающий этап подготовки к запуску АМС "Фобос-Грунт" (фоторепортаж)