Dear Jack Waldbewohner,
Since you are a valued member of the Planetary Society team that helped launch our Phobos LIFE experiment, I want to share with you excerpts from a letter we just received from our colleagues at the Space Research Institute (IKI) of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
As you’ll read, the Phobos-Grunt (Soil) spacecraft failed to leave Earth orbit after it was launched last month, carrying our LIFE capsule on what we hoped would be a round trip to Mars’ moon Phobos and back.
The letter came from Lev Zelenyi, Director of the Space Research Institute. It reads:
“As you may already know, the launch of the Phobos-Soil spacecraft was a failure. On November 8, 2011 the spacecraft was put into the near Earth orbit, however, the booster did not turn on, and, therefore, the spacecraft did not manage to change this initial orbit and transfer to the interplanetary trajectory. The reason of this failure has not been determined yet.
“Immediately after this unpredictable event all forces of the mission control team were concentrated in order to attempt to establish communication with the spacecraft. Several foreign organizations, in particular, ESOC-ESA, DSN-JPL-NASA, NORAD-STRATCOM, numerous amateur observers tracked the spacecraft to establish communication with it and determine parameters of the orbit, its orientation and attitude. However, despite people being at work 24 / 7 since the launch, all these attempts have not yield any satisfactory results. We are grateful to our foreign colleagues, who provided us with every list of information about the spacecraft which was crucial at the time.
“Currently, the spacecraft is rotating at the near Earth orbit, lowering every day, and we expect that it is to enter the atmosphere in several weeks. Lavochkin Association specialists will continue their attempts to establish connection with the spacecraft and send commands until the very end of its existence. We are working nevertheless on the issue of re-entry and probability of where and which fragments may hit the ground (if any).
“We would like to express our deep gratitude to you and all the scientists and specialists for collaboration on the Phobos-Soil Mission, preparation of scientific instruments and provision of ground support. We are deeply sorry about the failure of the Phobos-Soil Mission. We hope in future to continue our collaboration on space science projects.”
The loss of Phobos LIFE is a blow, but we are already recovering and looking forward to the future. We are even now analyzing the microorganisms that flew with our Shuttle LIFE project on the last flight of Endeavour, and we are seeking out future exploratory opportunities to share with you.
With your invaluable help and support, we know that together we will make our future in space vibrant, coming ever closer to our shared goals of understanding and appreciating the worlds around us.
Thank you again for all your support.
Sincerely,
Bruce Betts,
Phobos LIFE Project Manager
Since you are a valued member of the Planetary Society team that helped launch our Phobos LIFE experiment, I want to share with you excerpts from a letter we just received from our colleagues at the Space Research Institute (IKI) of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
As you’ll read, the Phobos-Grunt (Soil) spacecraft failed to leave Earth orbit after it was launched last month, carrying our LIFE capsule on what we hoped would be a round trip to Mars’ moon Phobos and back.
The letter came from Lev Zelenyi, Director of the Space Research Institute. It reads:
“As you may already know, the launch of the Phobos-Soil spacecraft was a failure. On November 8, 2011 the spacecraft was put into the near Earth orbit, however, the booster did not turn on, and, therefore, the spacecraft did not manage to change this initial orbit and transfer to the interplanetary trajectory. The reason of this failure has not been determined yet.
“Immediately after this unpredictable event all forces of the mission control team were concentrated in order to attempt to establish communication with the spacecraft. Several foreign organizations, in particular, ESOC-ESA, DSN-JPL-NASA, NORAD-STRATCOM, numerous amateur observers tracked the spacecraft to establish communication with it and determine parameters of the orbit, its orientation and attitude. However, despite people being at work 24 / 7 since the launch, all these attempts have not yield any satisfactory results. We are grateful to our foreign colleagues, who provided us with every list of information about the spacecraft which was crucial at the time.
“Currently, the spacecraft is rotating at the near Earth orbit, lowering every day, and we expect that it is to enter the atmosphere in several weeks. Lavochkin Association specialists will continue their attempts to establish connection with the spacecraft and send commands until the very end of its existence. We are working nevertheless on the issue of re-entry and probability of where and which fragments may hit the ground (if any).
“We would like to express our deep gratitude to you and all the scientists and specialists for collaboration on the Phobos-Soil Mission, preparation of scientific instruments and provision of ground support. We are deeply sorry about the failure of the Phobos-Soil Mission. We hope in future to continue our collaboration on space science projects.”
The loss of Phobos LIFE is a blow, but we are already recovering and looking forward to the future. We are even now analyzing the microorganisms that flew with our Shuttle LIFE project on the last flight of Endeavour, and we are seeking out future exploratory opportunities to share with you.
With your invaluable help and support, we know that together we will make our future in space vibrant, coming ever closer to our shared goals of understanding and appreciating the worlds around us.
Thank you again for all your support.
Sincerely,
Bruce Betts,
Phobos LIFE Project Manager
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