Russian Space Program: News & Discussion #1

PapaDragon wrote:Progres cargo craft ran into problems. Craft ended up in higher orbit than normal. Telemetry lost (I think). Ground crews working on it.

Russian speakers might update us later, I hit a language barrier

MOSCOW, April 28. /TASS/. The docking of the launched on Tuesday morning Progress M-27M cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) has been indefinitely postponed, a rocket and space industry source told TASS.

"The spacecraft is currently very quickly and uncontrollably turning on its axis, one turn in just several seconds. The Mission Control Centre’s commands are not reaching the spacecraft and telemetric data are also transmitted erratically," the source said.
"The docking, originally planned for Aril 30, has been postponed indefinitely," he said.

TASS

Mission Control may try to stop rotation of Progress spacecraft tonight

MOSCOW, April 28. /TASS/. Mission Control Center near Moscow will make another attempt tonight to establish contact with the cargo spacecraft Progress M-27M and to use a remote control mode of operation in order to stop the spacecraft’s erratic rotation, a source in the space rocket industry has told TASS.
"Experts have now paused attempts to contact the spacecraft. The first communication session is due on Wednesday, at 03:50 Moscow time. It will last about 15-16 minutes. It is not ruled out specialists will use the teleoperated mode of control to stop spacecraft’s rotation, although the chances of success are few, because the direction of rotation remains unclear. As soon as it has been established, teleoperated mode of control will be employed," the source said.
TASS has no official confirmation yet.
Earlier, the close-up and docking navigation system Kurs and the onboard video camera were switched on.
The Soyuz-2.1a rocket with a Progress spacecraft blasted off from the Baikonur space site in Kazakhstan on Tuesday morning. Soon it turned out that telemetry from it was not available and the spacecraft itself had entered an undesignated orbit. A source in the space industry told TASS that without correcting the orbit the spacecraft might be lost.

Mike E wrote:Hmm... Interesting... 

I myself am not a fan of the Chinese rockets and their space program together, but co-operation with Roscosmos could be a win-win for both parties. China gets more advanced technology, and Russia gets more affordable launches along with the possibility of an Angara pad in China.

They are still decades behind either Russia or the US when it comes to their space program... And when their launches go wrong, they go REALLY wrong.

Mike E wrote:Progress sure, but that doesn't mean they have caught up. It will be a matter of years before they hit the great tech-stall that the rocket-engineering sector has been in for years now.

Voskhod wrote:

Mike E wrote:Progress sure, but that doesn't mean they have caught up. It will be a matter of years before they hit the great tech-stall that the rocket-engineering sector has been in for years now.

Lets hope for them they don't waste the future of their program on something crap like the Space Shuttle or the country dissolves around them. (Soviet-Union).

Morpheus Eberhardt wrote:Russian Space Cameras

The Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) plans to launch a new sample soil expedition to Mars’ satellite Phobos, according to a draft of Russia's new space program for 2016-2025 unveiled on Monday. Under the document, the Mars-Grunt (Soil) expedition is planned for 2024 to deliver soil samples from the Martian moon Phobos to the Earth. The project is estimated at 10.3 billion rubles ($198 million). This sum is twice as large as the amount stipulated in the draft federal space program prepared last year.

Roscosmos plans a new interplanetary expedition after a failure of its previous Phobos mission.

The Phobos-Grunt interplanetary probe was launched into a near-Earth orbit on November 9, 2011. The probe was expected to reach the Mars orbit and simultaneously land a module on Mars’ natural satellite Phobos for exploration and the delivery of soil samples to the Earth.

However, the interplanetary probe was unable to reach the trajectory of its flight to Mars due to an engine failure and stayed in the near-Earth orbit.

The probe's debris fell to the Earth on January 15. According to Russia’s Defense Ministry, the Phobos-Grunt probe’s fragments that did not burn in the dense layers of the atmosphere fell into the Pacific Ocean 1,250 km (777 miles) west of Wellington Island (Chile).