Russia delays Mars probe launch until 2012: report

September 16, 2009
A view of Mars from the Hubble Space Telescope

Enlarge

This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image released in 2005 shows Mars. Russia will pushed back its flagship satellite mission to Mars' moon until 2011 in a move which will delay the joint launch of China's first Mars probe, space sources were cited as saying Wednesday.

Russia will pushed back its flagship satellite mission to Mars' moon until 2011 in a move which will delay the joint launch of China's first Mars probe, space sources were cited as saying Wednesday.

"The prospects of the spacecraft Phobos' flight to was discussed at a conference of scientist and space industry firms today. The dominant opinion was that this flight would be put off until 2011," one source told the Interfax news agency.

The delay, just two month before the scheduled launch, will be officially announced this week by , Roskosmos, the source added.

Russia's Phobos-Grunt unmanned probe aims to land on the Martian moon Phobos to collect soil samples. It was to blast off with the Chinese probe from the Baikonour cosmodrome in Kazakhstan next month.

A later launch date should allow the probe a shorter trajectory for its mission, Interfax reported.

But specialist news site RussianSpaceWeb.com cited industry sources as saying the launch will likely be postponed because the addition of China's 110 kilogramme (242 pound) probe had overloaded the mission.

Russian planners were forced to upgrade from a Soyuz to Zenit rocket causing delays while more tests are needed for the complex mission, it reported.

China's Mars orbiter Yinghuo-1, designed to probe the Martian space environment looking for water, was shipped to Russia in August.

(c) 2009 AFP

Filter


Move the slider to adjust rank threshold, so that you can hide some of the comments.


Display comments: newest first

yyz
Sep 16, 2009

Rank: not rated yet
You would think the weight issue with the Chinese orbiter would have been would have been obvious to the Russians and Chinese well before now. Then, given the past history of Russian probes to Mars (ie Phobos), perhaps this delay will allow a more thorough checkout of critical hardware and software.
Hungry4info2
Sep 17, 2009

Rank: not rated yet
I love the whole Headline/Story disagreement about the launch date.
Rank 4 /5 (3 votes)
Tags

mars, mars mission, baikonour cosmodrome, unmanned probe, russian space agency
Related Stories
more news
Relevant PhysicsForums posts
  • Never ending outer space.....
    created14 hours ago
  • Neutron Star fragments?
    created16 hours ago
  • stationary or not?
    created20 hours ago
  • Scale of the Universe
    createdFeb 10, 2012
  • Titan's lack of impact craters
    createdFeb 09, 2012
  • Real pictures of black hole eating a star?
    createdFeb 08, 2012
  • More from Physics Forums - General Astronomy

More news stories

Latin America mining boom clashes with conservation

Latin America is experiencing a mining boom as prices rise fuelled by a hike in global demand, but the region is also being hit by a wave of violent protests, strikes and rallies by environmentalists.

Space & Earth / Environment

created 7 hours ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Political leaders play key role in how worried Americans are by climate change: study

More than extreme weather events and the work of scientists, it is national political leaders who influence how much Americans worry about the threat of climate change, new research finds.

Space & Earth / Environment

created Feb 06, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (6) | comments 73

NASA budget will axe Mars deal with Europe: scientists

US President Barack Obama's budget proposal to be submitted next week for 2013 will cut NASA's budget by 20 percent and eliminate a major partnership with Europe on Mars exploration, scientists said Thursday.

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Feb 10, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 55

Humans may have helped the decline of African rainforests 3000 years ago

(PhysOrg.com) -- Large areas of rainforests in Central Africa mysteriously disappeared over three thousand years ago, to be replaced by savannas. The prevailing theory has been that the cause was a change ...

Space & Earth / Environment

created Feb 10, 2012 | popularity 4.1 / 5 (14) | comments 20 | with audio podcast report

Study shows global glaciers, ice caps, shedding billions of tons of mass annually

Earth's glaciers and ice caps outside of the regions of Greenland and Antarctica are shedding roughly 150 billion tons of ice annually, according to a new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder.

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Feb 08, 2012 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (9) | comments 14 | with audio podcast


Injured boomers beware: Know when to see doctor

(AP) -- It happened to nurse Jane Byron years after an in-line skating fall, business owner Haralee Weintraub while doing "men's" push-ups, and avid cyclist Gene Wilberg while lifting a heavy box.

Google might launch Drive for cloud storage soon

(PhysOrg.com) -- Google's next big move, according to the Wall Street Journal, is a cloud storage service called Drive. Hardly first to the plate, Google is simply catching up to introducing its cloud reposi ...

Love a click away in Indonesia's Twitter Republic

He was a geeky kid from Yogyakarta, she a glamorous city girl in Jakarta. In a country with one of the world's most vibrant social networking scenes they fell in love on Twitter.

Europeans protest controversial Internet pact

Tens of thousands of people marched in protests in more than a dozen European cities Saturday against a controversial anti-online piracy pact that critics say could curtail Internet freedom.

Walney offshore wind farm is world's biggest (for now)

(PhysOrg.com) -- The Walney wind farm on the Irish Sea--characterized by high tides, waves and windy weather--officially opened this week. The farm is treated in the press as a very big deal as the Walney ...

Navy to begin tests on electromagnetic railgun prototype launcher

The Office of Naval Research (ONR)'s Electromagnetic (EM) Railgun program will take an important step forward in the coming weeks when the first industry railgun prototype launcher is tested at a facility ...