Astrophotographers Capture Phobos-Grunt; ESA Ends Tracking the Russian Probe

By Nancy Atkinson - December 2, 2011 at 7:16 PM UTC | uncategorized
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While amateur astrophotographers have been tracking the Phobos-Grunt spacecraft in its orbit around Earth, ESA has decided to curtail operations to try to make further contact with the ailing craft. "Efforts in the past week to send commands to and receive data from the Russian Mars mission via ESA ground stations have not succeeded; no response has been seen from the satellite," ESA reported in a press release. They made this decisionafter consultation with mission managers in Russia, but teams will remain available to assist if there is any change in the situation.

ESA teams from a tracking station at Perth, Australia had established contact with the Russian spacecraft on November 22 which was the first signal received on Earth since the mission to Mars' moon was launched on November 8, 2011. Since then, however, weren't able to maintain contact.

Above,

Ralf Vandebergh

from the The Netherlands has imaged the spacecraft in orbit and this graphic compares the images to the components on pictures of the spacecraft.

Below, and a video from another astrophotographer in The Netherlands tracks the spacecraft during a night pass, and another image from Vandebergh shows color differences between the solar panels and the main body,

Marco Langbroek captured this footage from near Leiden, The Netherlands on Nov. 28, 2011. See more at

his website

.

[caption id="attachment_91504" align="alignleft" width="580" caption="Noticable color differences between the main body and solar panels of Phobos-Grunt. Credit: Ralf Vandebergh"]

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Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com