European Space Agency calls it quits on attempts to recover contact with Phobos-Grunt.

Still not a single word from Roscosmos, about what's going on with the doomed Phobos-Grunt, but ESA is officially giving up of its attempts to recover contact with the spacecraft. One week ago or so, a front of ESA in Australia did make contact with PG, but it seems that is ultimately unrecoverable.

It is looking increasingly grim for Russia's Mars mission Phobos-Grunt, which has been stuck circling the Earth since its launch in early November.

Apart from some brief radio contact with the wayward probe just over a week ago, there has been total silence from the spacecraft.
The European Space Agency announced on Friday that it was now ceasing any further attempts to get a signal. Russian engineers though are expected to keep trying to the last.
"We will stay available for our Russian colleagues in case there is any sign or glimpse of hope from their side," said Dr Manfred Warhaut from Esa's European Space Operations Centre (Esoc) in Darmstadt, Germany.
It was Esa's 15m antenna in Perth, Australia, that first managed to get a response from Phobos-Grunt on 22 and 23 November (GMT). That success was quickly followed by Russian ground controllers using a 0.5m dish in Baikonur, Kazakhstan.
But since then, the probe has not reacted to any commands.
Phobos-Grunt is currently moving in an orbit with an altitude that varies between 200km (perigee) and 340km (apogee).
This orbit is slowly decaying. If engineers cannot re-establish contact and control, the 13-tonne spacecraft will eventually fall back to Earth.
The game-plan of late has been to try to stabilise the orbit by getting commands into the probe that would activate its thrusters and raise it higher in the sky. Getting Phobos-Grunt into a safe "parking orbit" would buy engineers more time to consider their options.
The opportunity to go to Mars, however, has been lost. The changing alignment of the planets now makes the distance to Mars too big to cross.

www.bbc.co.uk...

What boils my blood is that the Russians act as if they owe NO explanations to the world. THEY put that 13 ton junk in orbit, THEY failed in make it work, THEY are failing in recover it and THEY keep a darned silence. Though, at first sight this behavior may look like simple arrogance, but as far as that spacecraft is a toxic bomb carrying a container with engineered bacteria, including surrogates or Anthrax, the hypothesis of a biologic warfare with the proper plausible deniability, seems to be very tempting.

reply to post by 1AnunnakiBastard


And according to non-confirmed statements of NORAD, the Phobos-Grunt should re-enter atmosphere, late November, early December. Well, eyes in the sky this week!

They told us all we need to know about PG.
The bacteria is not hazardous like you suggest.
There is nothing anyone or country can do at this point.
So why grovel? Poo happens.

Originally posted by 1AnunnakiBastard
What boils my blood is that the Russians act as if they owe NO explanations to the world. THEY put that 13 ton junk in orbit, THEY failed in make it work, THEY are failing in recover it and THEY keep a darned silence. Though, at first sight this behavior may look like simple arrogance, but as far as that spacecraft is a toxic bomb carrying a container with engineered bacteria, including surrogates or Anthrax, the hypothesis of a biologic warfare with the proper plausible deniability, seems to be very tempting.

No explanation at all? Or just no explanation on the news sites? Is there a mandate that they must release the info to general public? How do we know they are not in constant communication with ESA and other space agencies? Really, in the grand scheme of things, it isn't important for you or I to know about it, other than because we are interested, but I would like to assume that they would be in communication with any important items that other agencies would need to know about it. Maybe once it actually starts coming back to earth, they will give an update to where it could land... That is probably the important item for us to know; to know that it won't land on my or my loved ones house. If it is coming back in early December, they should tell us something soon, I would think and not just let us all find out about it once it lands in my backyard.

TBH, this is the first I had heard of anthrax and/or other engineered bacteria on it? Did I misunderstand your post and you are just conspiratorially speculating that there could be alterior motives to the mission agenda of the "satellite", or is there more info?

Originally posted by samkent
They told us all we need to know about PG.

Double post.