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View Full Version : Difficult rebirth for Russian space science



Studeo
22nd September 2010, 12:48
Earlier this month, inside Paris' majestic Grand Palace, Russia was showcasing its cultural and technological achievements.

Portraying a harmonious and progressive society, colourful musical performances and art exhibits were showing alongside impressive displays of Russia's aerospace power, oil industry and other high-tech sectors.

At the heart of the Russian space pavilion was an exhibit for the NPO Lavochkin design bureau - the nation's veteran developer of unmanned planetary probes.

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I can't let this old generation go before they pass their experience to new people... There is no secret, this is difficult”
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Viktor Khartov

NPO Lavochkin
Lavochkin's exhibit proudly displayed a scale-model of the Phobos-Grunt spacecraft, a mission to land on the potato-shaped moon of Mars and return grains of its mysteriously light surface back to Earth.

Involving a number of international participants, Phobos-Grunt was being advertised as Russia's flagship deep-space mission, paving the way for the country's return to planetary exploration after a two-decade hiatus.

The problem, however, is that Phobos-Grunt developed a credibility problem in the international space community. Conceived in the midst of the post-Soviet economic crisis at the end of the 1990s, it remained a paper project for years.

Then, the rebound of the Russian economy afforded the revival of the program. However, as history proved many times, money could not buy what only years of efforts could acquire, be it Olympic gold or the complex world of cutting-edge science.

PHOBOS-GRUNT
Will return soil samples from Mars' largest moon
Conceived in 1999, it remained a "paper project" for many years
Currently scheduled to launch at the end of 2011
Will lift off on a Zenit 3-F rocket from Baikonur in Kazakhstan
Spacecraft will deliver a Chinese-built sub-satellite into Martian orbit
Main computer will navigate a careful rendezvous with Phobos
Special thrusters will "press" the spacecraft on to Phobos' surface
Mechanical arms pick up soil and load it on to a return rocket
Flight control computer will guide the return craft back to Earth

While Russia's cosmonauts continued to rocket into orbit with Swiss-clock regularity, even in the worst economic times, all efforts to jump-start the nation's neglected planetary exploration programme had so far failed.

In the meantime, Nasa's planetary spacecraft ventured into the farthest expanses of the Solar System, its rovers logged many miles on the dunes of Mars. Specialised probes penetrated the atmosphere of Jupiter and landed on the surface of Titan.

Even relative newcomers to unmanned missions, such as the European space agency, China, India and Japan, flew impressive planetary missions, which post-Soviet Russia is yet to match.

Ironically, even the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) brochures advertising the country's space programme are often adorned with images of planets beamed to Earth by American spacecraft.

With high political stakes over the revival of deep-space missions, Russian space bosses would not take "no" for an answer.

Last year, the official Russian media ran many optimistic stories about the upcoming launch of the Phobos-Grunt spacecraft - which had been promised to occur in the Autumn.

The Russian space agency vigorously denied a few independent reports, which most industry insiders had long known to be accurate, that Phobos-Grunt was not going anywhere any time soon.....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10414237

onawah
23rd September 2010, 02:48
This sounds to me like a ploy designed to cover up what Russian scientists are really doing, which is probably a lot more sophisticated than the Phobos-Grunt spacecraft.