Just as grouchy as the old bear, at times:
A Russian scientific spacecraft whizzing out of control around the Earth, and expected to re-enter the atmosphere on Saturday, may have failed because it was struck by some type of antisatellite weapon, the director of Russia’s space agency said in an interview published Tuesday.
He did not say who would want to interfere with the spacecraft, which was intended to explore a moon of Mars.
The Russian craft, named Phobos-Grunt for the moon and the Russian word for ground, ran into trouble soon after it was launched in November, when its rockets failed to lift it out of low Earth orbit. What was to have been a two-and-a-half-year interplanetary journey to retrieve a soil sample from Phobos will instead end over the weekend, according to Russian engineers.
When the 13-ton Phobos-Grunt breaks up in the atmosphere, debris could potentially fall anywhere along a vast stretch of the Earth’s surface that includes the cities of New York, London and Tokyo. Though the odds are heavily against the debris causing any harm, the spectacle of people around the world anticipating the crash is another embarrassment for Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, which has presided over a series of rocket and satellite failures this year…
Mr. Popovkin did not directly implicate the United States in the interview. But he said “the frequent failure of our space launches, which occur at a time when they are flying over the part of Earth not visible from Russia, where we do not see the spacecraft and do not receive telemetric information, are not clear to us,” an apparent reference to the Americas.
Probably more a case of embarrassment at a string of failed launches, intended to placate the domestic audience. But the tendency toward paranoia in Mother Rus is never far below the surface.
There’s a lot of history behind all that.
Most experts seem to agree that the project was underfunded and attempted on the cheap and simply failed because of that. It didn’t help that they evidently added on a Chinese ‘experiment’ onto the already under engineered and funded stack at the last minute. Stupid design and management will always lose out, especially on the always risky Mars missions.
I’m sure the “Chief Designer” is laughing from his grave.
Crying, more likely. The Soviet government was not worthy of the services of a genius like Korolev.
I blame it on the boogie.
Nope. Marvin is defending his territory again.
“There’s a history of that.”
Lex, you have a talent for understatement. When I was in college, I took the first of a three-course Russian History program. Covered from the origins of the country to about 1780. It’s astonishing how much of modern Russian/Soviet behavior can be traced directly to things that happened 500-600 years ago. The Russians just don’t change their colors.
“The Russians” by Alexander. The USN made me read it. Very much tells the story you mentioned. I read it when I went to the CDIO course.
Gee, no telemetry except direct path?
That’s an interesting admission.
I suspect that the photos shown on this page have a greater bearing on recent failures …
http://englishrussia.com/2011/12/22/exploring-rocket-engines-producing-object/#more-85118
But it is always so much easier to blame it on “the other”.
You are talking about the photos of the techs at the bottom of the page, right?
O/T
Capt..how do we order items from Amazon through you?
Maybe an Aegis cruiser and SM3 could take this one out?
That’s really reassuring to our few remaining astronauts now that they have to hitchhike with the Russki’s to the ISS.
Good news is that I hear the Russki ships have brass fittings and soft paper in the lavvies.
The Mars Score Card (http://www.bio.aps.anl.gov/~dgore/fun/PSL/marsscorecard.html) is dated, but it appears that the Martians are still tied with us Earthlings.
Tie is generous. Some of the “scores” are nearly complete failures. Note the details of Russian missions Mars 2, 3, and 4! Even at that, most of the “scoring” has been the Americans. The Russian history with Mars missions argues for expecting failure and being pleasantly surprised when they pull one off.
Yeah, but they did right well with Venus. Have y’all seen those pics taken on the surface of Venus? I think one of their machines may have lasted as long as an hour or so there.