09 November 2011

Russians Send Probe To Mars Moon

Russian Phobos-Grunt mission will launch a probe to the Mars moon Phobos. It will scoop up rock and dust samples from the Martian moon and bring them back to Earth.

On Wednesday at 00:16 local time (20:16 GMT Tuesday), the probe will lift off from Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. It will be lifted off to space on a Zenit-2SB rocket. According to calculations, the probe will reach Phobos in September 2012. The Mars moon samples will be back on Earth in 33 months time.

UPDATE 07:48 GMT Nov 9: The Phobos-Grunt rocket veered off course within minutes of starting its mission. An engine designed to keep the probe on track failed to start and is currently stuck in an Earth orbit. Russian engineers have three days to correct the fault before its batteries run out

Aside from its main mission, the Phobos-Grunt will also carry China's first Mars satellite, the Yinghuo 1. It will ride piggy back and be released into an observational orbit around Mars.

The European Space Agency assisted with the mission by giving detailed mapping of the moon by it's Mars Express (MEx) satellite. This information is used to identify a suitable location for landing. They also are providing ground support for the mission.

Video: News report on the stalled mission to Mars

Phobos is of interest to astronomers. The Potato-shaped moon is thought to be an asteroid that got caught by the gravity of Mars. Some think that it may be a collection of rocks that formed around Mars after its formation.

It is one of two moons at Mars (the other being Deimos) and has an extremely low density may mean that it has many interior voids.

Once the probe has landed on Phobos, a robotic arm will pick up samples of the regolith or "soil". Analysis will be made within the probe's instruments and around 200g of the material will be transferred to a canister and sent back to Earth. The canister is expected to fall to Earth in the Kazakh desert by August 2014.

Aside from ESA, The French (Cnes) and German (DLR) space agencies also participated by providing instrumentation for Phobos-Grunt. The US advocacy group, The Planetary Society is also contributing to the mission by sending a payload of live microorganisms to test the hypothesis that life can survive in space after being blasted off planets from meteor impacts.

On another front, NASA is partnering with Astrobotic Technology to plan a mission that will mine fuel and minerals (specially Helium 3) on the moon.

Video: Mission animation of the Phobos-Gunt made by the Russian Federal Space Agency