Paris, 25 nov (EFE).-experts from the Australian Observatory of the European Space Agency (ESA) have failed to establish contact this evening with the Russian interplanetary station Phobos-Grunt, which orbits uncontrolled around the Earth instead of moving towards their destination Marte.
Between the GMT 20.12 yesterday and the GMT 04.04 today scientists have a window of 6 to 8 minutes to establish contact from a 15 m diameter antenna located in Perth, Australia, reported today that the.
It’s the same observation point from which experts have Yes managed to receive information by telemetry on two occasions, once by a failure still not dodge the past day 8, the ship remained in Earth orbit rather than tack to Marte.
“The Perth station was prepared for the same techniques and settings that worked before.” “But fail to return radio signal from the spacecraft,” said the head of the ESA for the Phobos-Grunt, Wolfgang Hell.
Although it’s bad news, the European Space Agency is something “positive”, longer than the “from Earth observations indicate that the orbit of the Phobos-Grunt has become more stable,”.
“This could mean that the altitude of the spacecraft, or orientation, are also stable, which could contribute to resume contact because we have been able to predict towards where it aimed its two antennas,” said the head of missions and operations of ESA’s Space Center German from Darmstadt, Manfred Warhaut.
The next window of communication from the Australian point of observation with the Phobos-Grunt will be on November 28, he added ESA.
Furthermore, Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, said that you there is time until the end of the month to try to revive the Phobos-Grunt and put it on its way to its destination: Phobos, one of the two moons of Marte
The Phobos-Grunt must fulfil a mission of 34 months which included the flight to Phobos, the decrease in the surface and, finally, return to Earth in a capsule with samples of the soil of the Martian satellite.
The project, at a cost of 5 billion rubles (about 170 million dollars), was intended to study the original matter in the solar system and help explain the origin of Phobos and Deimos, the second Martian moon, as well as other natural satellites in the solar system. EFE
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