[meteorite-list] ESA Suspends Tracking Support to Phobos-Grunt

[MexicoDoug]

How bitterly sad.  I feel like we were about to catch a part of Phobos 
in a fishing net, but the handle of the net was just a centimeter too 
short or we didn't lunge far enough; and plop went the most exciting 
sample return mission since Luna into the deep blue sea.

Then, we saw it under the water and tried again, but the refracted 
handle caused a miss and to the bottom it spiralled down ... which will 
be the case in a few months.  It will be interesting to see who, if 
anyone, steps forward to zap this while still aloft.  My bet is on 
China but that would be an interesting political situation since the 
mission is Captained by Russia.  ahh, what a loss.

How many more chances in our lifetimes?  Real material from Phobos, 
which from the beginning (I recall and someone may have referecnes) as 
a child seeing Dad's Sky and Tel mags with Russian images of Phobos.  
In a competitive world it was so interesting how the two early Space 
pioneers, the USSR and the USA, divided up the Solar system for 
exploration in such a peaceful manner and executed all the missions 
with such pure hopes.  I miss that competition, and hope the Russian 
program can recover from this terrible setback.  Losing the mass of 
talent there is really a low point in space exploration, especially 
seeing where the current East vs. West has ended up, no where near as 
fun of a race for the home teams as before.  How can we get this back?

Kindest wishes
Doug


-----Original Message-----
From: Ron Baalke <baalke at zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>
To: Meteorite Mailing List <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Fri, Dec 2, 2011 5:24 pm
Subject: [meteorite-list] ESA Suspends Tracking Support to Phobos-Grunt


http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Operations/SEMNEO2XFVG_2.html

ESA suspends tracking support to Russian Mars mission
European Space Agency
2 December 2011

In consultation and agreement with Phobos-Grunt mission managers, ESA
engineers will end tracking support today. Efforts in the past week to 
send
commands to and receive data from the Russian Mars mission via ESA 
ground
stations have not succeeded; no response has been seen from the 
satellite.
ESA teams remain available to assist the Phobos-Grunt mission if 
indicated
by any change in the situation.


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