A couple of weeks ago we wrote about Uwingu, a creative, out-of-the-box concept to help solve what appears to be a growing problem for researchers, scientists, educators and students: how to get funding for research and other ground-breaking space exploration and astronomy projects. Why are a group of individuals from the space and astronomy community taking matters into their own hands to do this?
Alan Stern one of the founders of Uwingu, and the Principal Investigator for the New Horizons mission to Pluto, explained it quite well in today’s episode of the 365 Days of Astronomy.
“Well, it seems almost every year we have budget problems,” he said. “This year the planetary budget got cut 20%. Just last week a report came out cutting the National Science Foundation astronomy facilities, recommending those cuts. And every year it’s the economy or it’s an overrun with NASA, or it’s the President’s budget, or it’s something that happens in Congress. And in space research, in space education, unlike, for example, medical research or if you’re a weather researcher or many other fields, there really aren’t very many places to turn when NASA’s budget is cut or the NSF budget’s cut. That’s about it in terms of the funding portfolio. We like to say, you know, if you only own one stock, you probably deserve what you get when it goes down. We’re out to try and diversify that portfolio a little bit.”
The Uwingu team — and by the way, Uwingu means ‘sky’ in Swahili — has put out a new video about their project, and in doing so, reveal a little more about how they plan to create a new funding method. For two years, they’ve been designing and building software products that will be sold, and the proceeds will create the Uwingu Fund for space research, exploration and education.
Pamela Gay described their ideas as “so elegant that I can’t believe they haven’t already been done.”
Uwingu needs to raise about $75,000 to get their concept off the ground, and after that should be self-supporting, as well as supporting an impressive amount of other researchers every year.
So if you haven’t yet checked out Uwingu, here’s a little reminder to do so. Just head to their Indiegogo page and see what you think.
Caption: Artist’s Concept, Space Exploration Vehicle Use Comparison. Credit: NASA
Conspiracy theories abound that the Apollo landings all took place on a film set in California, but today NASA’s Desert RATS team begins a mission to asteroid Itokawa. They will land, rove and even undertake spacewalks, without ever stepping foot out of their home base at Johnson Space Center in Texas. This is no hoax however, but a simulated mission to test out NASA’s audacious plan to send astronauts to an asteroid by 2025.
The Desert RATS have been testing robots and other tools that could be used on future exploration missions since 1997, (this is their 15th mission) usually doing analog missions out in the field. “Desert” refers to the Arizona desert, where a lot of the team’s activities take place and “RATS” stands for “Research and Technology Studies.”
However, since they are now testing out a zero-G visit to an asteroid, the team will use mockups inside JSC’s Space Vehicle Mockup Facility, which offers a medley of tools and simulators that would be difficult to transport to a field test location.
For example, the Multi-Mission Space Exploration Vehicle (MMSEV) is designed to both rove across a planetary surface on a wheeled chassis or fly in space using advanced propulsion systems. Four crew members will take it in turns to live in and operate the simulator to explore the asteroid.
The MMSEV can be put on a sled on an air-bearing floor to simulate the moves that the crew might feel during a real mission. There will also be a 50-second delay in voice transmission, going each way to simulate the light-speed travel time between Earth and the asteroid.
The crew can also undertake spacewalks using ARGOS (Active Response Gravity Offload System) an overhead gantry crane system that simulates the reduced gravity environment. In reality nothing would stop astronauts from just floating off the surface but NASA is thinking about using jetpacks, tethers, bungees, nets or spiderwebs to allow them to float just above the surface attached to a smaller mini-spaceship.
A team of scientists from the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Directorate will ensure proper scientific methods are applied to asteroid sample collection techniques throughout the 10 day mission.
The mission is slated to run until August 30th or 31st. Find out more here or follow the NASA Desert RATS team on Twitter
Second image caption: ARGOS can be used to make spacewalkers feel as though they weigh 1/6 of their weight, as they would on the moon, or 1/3, as on Mars. Photo credit: NASA
An impressive group of individuals from the space and astronomy community have teamed up to create an innovative, out-of-the-box concept to help solve what appears to be a growing problem for researchers, scientists, educators and students: how to get funding for research and other ground-breaking projects. With NASA and National Science Foundation budgets shrinking, a new start-up called Uwingu (which means “sky” in Swahili) will be working to provide ways to keep space science thriving.
Founders of the project include notable names like Alan Stern, Andrew Chaikin, Pamela Gay, Geoff Marcy, Mark Sykes, David Grinspoon, and Emily CoBabe-Amman.
Stern told Universe Today that the group’s initiative is not so much in response to the current government funding troubles, but a way to expand resources for the space and astronomy community, which is “just smart business,” he said.
However, it is an indication of changing times. “We couldn’t do this without the internet, frankly, which provides a new avenue for reaching people,” Stern said.
Additionally, Stern contrasted space and astronomy research, which mainly relies on NASA and NSF grants, to medical research, which has multiple lines of funding venues such as pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and the hundreds of medical foundations such as the American Cancer Society, in addition to government grants.
While Stern explained that he couldn’t yet reveal all the details of Uwingu, he did provide a few hints.
“The idea is to provide outstanding, innovative and cutting edge products,” he said. “We won’t just be accessing space and astronomy people who want to give to a cause, but will be accessing the general public, which is a much bigger marketplace.”
Dr. Pamela Gay wrote about Uwingu on her Starstryder website, saying “Their ideas are so elegant that I can’t believe they haven’t already been done.”
While the team is still finalizing some of their concepts, part of their reticence is building suspense. “Just like any new product line, it’s part of building suspense, just like Apple does when they release a new product. But we have a whole series of projects in work, and we want to do it right, too.”
Stern said part of what they are doing is to be a safety net for the space and astronomy community and part of it is to do new things. But, he added, when people have the greatest need is probably a good time to launch a project like this.
Uwingu is looking to raise an initial $75,000 through their Indiegogo site (similar to Kickstarter) to get the company going. After that, they hope to be self-sufficient and build enough resources to be a source of grants and funding for space and astronomy research.
“We are asking people to go the Indiegogo page, take a look and consider participating, and then to please pass it on to others you know.” Stern said. “For everyone 10 people you send it to, maybe one will contribute. This needs to grow organically by people passing it on through the internet. We’re hoping the space and astronomy people will help give us a start, but when it launches with the real first products out into the broader public, we think it will be a real breakout.”
“If we can get that message across, I think it will fly. I have faith in this,” Stern added.
How many times a week do we use the word “awesome” here on Universe Today? While we haven’t kept track, we admit it’s quite often. We feel privileged to be able to share with you the incredible — yes, awesome — images, videos and stories of our exploration of space. And it turns out, being awestruck could actually be good for us.
“Our ability to awe was biologically selected for us by evolution because it imbues our lives with a sense of cosmic significance that has resulted in a species that works harder not just to survive but to flourish and thrive,” writes filmmaker Jason Silva, who has produced this awesome new video about being awestruck.
Based on three different researcher’s work, Silva’s film highlights how having regular experiences of awe makes us feel good, provides a reason to live and love, spurs us to keep exploring and pushing onward, and provides an “unprecedented expansion of human vision.” The video shows many images from space, especially pictures produced by the Hubble Space Telescope, and Silva told Universe Today that this video is actually dedicated to the HST.
Sit back and enjoy the wonder of being awestruck!
Caption: A firestorm of star birth in the active galaxy Centaurus A. Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration
“If Kennedy said ‘we will go to the Moon…some time before the century ends,’ what is… what is that? That’s not ambition. That’s pandering.”
– Neil deGrasse Tyson, Fight for Space
Here we are on the 43rd anniversary of the Apollo Moon landing, with no more shuttles flying, slashed space program budgets and no real targeted plan to get people off this world and onto another. American students score abysmally in science and math, and the general public thinks NASA is dead. What’s happened to America’s drive? What’s happened to the nation’s sense of wonder, its devotion to science, engineering, education and its man-on-the-Moon motivation?
Film producer Paul Hildebrandt wants to find out. But he needs your help.
Hildebrandt and his team from Eventide Visuals in Chico, CA, are creating an independent feature-length documentary about America’s space program, called “Fight for Space”. It’s not a collection of launch videos and CGI solar system shots, though; Hildebrandt is digging deeper into what originally made the U.S. space program great — and what has happened to it since then.
“We are producing a documentary that will examine the reasons why our space program is not all it can be. We are also going to show that space IS worth the time, money, and energy that it needs, not for only exploration and scientific reasons but for economic, planetary security, and cultural reasons as well,” writes Hildebrandt.
Hildebrandt has been attending space symposiums and traveling to interview key figures in science and space outreach, like Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye, Robert Zubrin and Congressman Dana Rohrabacher. He’s talked with scientists, astronauts, educators and regular everyday Americans about the importance of the space program. But in order for the Fight to continue, he needs our help.
Fortunately, that’s what Kickstarter is here for. Fight for Space is looking to get a little backing from interested and like-minded space fans to keep the process moving, and hopefully see the film become a fully produced, publicized, and possibly broadcasted reality.
“With your help we can bring awareness to this issue and come closer to making our space program a priority for this country once again.”
You can pledge any amount, from $10 to $10,000 or more (and see the incremental rewards of doing so) on the Fight for Space Kickstarter page here, and visit the Fight for Space website here.
“Please, support our film by donating above and share this project with your friends, family, and anyone you know who cares about space exploration or cares about the future economic and national security of this country.”
– Paul Hildebrandt, Fight for Space producer
After completing 193 days in space as a member of the Expedition 30 and 31 crews, astronaut Don Pettit returned to Earth on July 1, 2012. Don is not your average, ordinary, fighter-pilot astronaut: he’s got a penchant for science, with a unique way of looking at things. He spent his expedition performing crazy zero-gravity experiments, grappling the first commercial spacecraft to visit the ISS, and blogging as his alter-ego, a zuchinni plant, among other things. Universe Today had the chance to talk with Pettit this morning about his experiences:
Nancy: Good morning Don. It’s an honor to talk with you. Congratulations on such a successful expedition.
Don Pettit: It’s great to talk with you!
Nancy: You did a lot of science experiments during your stay in space, both the official ISS program experiments and also your own “Science off the Sphere” experiments. Of the official ones, which was the most interesting and engaging or perhaps what you felt was the most important experiment that you did?
Don Pettit: There were two categories of experiments that really captivated me. One is the human life science experiments that we do on ourselves, where we poke and prod ourselves and take blood and other samples, trying to figure out how this thing called the human being operates in a weightless environment. The other category of experiment that I thought was really fascinating was combustion. That’s a fancy way of saying ‘fire’ which of course is what is required to power our current civilization.
Caption: Pettit working with the Structure and Liftoff In Combustion Experiment (SLICE) in the Destiny laboratory of the International Space Station. Pettit conducted three sets of flame tests, followed by a fan calibration. This test will lead to increased efficiency and reduced pollutant emission for practical combustion devices. Credit: NASA
Nancy: What was your favorite Science off the Sphere experiment that you did?
Don Pettit: Oh, probably the one that has to do with the knitting needles and looking at charged droplets in a stable orbit around the knitting needles. That was really fun and simple and a fun demonstration of what you can do when you remove gravitational forces and replace them with small forces like charged forces.
Nancy: I think that was my favorite one too!
I want to say thank you on behalf of everyone, I think, on planet Earth, for the amazing images you took during your mission– the star trails, the aurorae, the transit of Venus are just a few examples — your images were just spectacular. How important is the photography that the astronauts do as far as documenting your expedition and being able to share your experiences with the public?
Don Pettit: If a picture is worth a thousand words and we take thousands of pictures that certainly says something in terms of the magnitude of communication we can have in conveying this amazing environment to people on Earth, who are of course, the ones collectively who makes this happen, and we are the lucky ones that get to go into space.
Part of any explorations, when you are going into the frontier and you come back you need to explain to people what the frontier is like, you need to share the stories and experience. Images now are one of the prime ways of doing that. I think the taking of both still images and video in space is not only an important pastime for the astronauts to do, but important to convey to the public that ultimately funds the space program, what is going on up there and how wonderful an environment this is. And eventually our technology will move to the point where people, wholesale, can jump in their rockets and go into this frontier.
Caption: Petit left his camera shutter open for long periods of time to capture star trails and trails of lights on Earth.
Nancy: We sure hope so!
You were an integral part of the SpaceX Dragon grapple and berth, the first commercial spaceship to visit the ISS. After being a part of that, what are your thoughts about the private industry becoming perhaps a vital part of human spaceflight, and in particular for space station operations?
Don Pettit: The commercial space is a natural flow for going into a frontier environment like space. You can see analogs of the wild west in the United States getting settled with a combination of both government programs and government sponsored commercial programs and I think we are going to see the same thing going into space. It’s an important aspect of opening the frontier so that more than just a few government-born programs can operate in this environment.
Nancy: Thanks Don, great to talk with you!
Don Pettit: It’s a pleasure.
I also wanted to ask him a few other questions, but ran out of time. At a reader’s suggestion I was going to ask him about the eggs on the Angry Birds Space video, and how he got them into space. Robert Pearlman from collectSPACE later asked him that question, however, and Pettit replied coyly that all astronauts has some personal items they can bring up, but as to how they got up there, Pettit said he’d leave that one unanswered.
I loved Pettit’s analogy about being an explorer of the frontier and in later interviews he had a great comment about Tweeting and exploring:
Don Pettit: Part of any exploration, like when the Antarctic was explored, they’d return home and tell their stories, spread their experience with those who didn’t have the good fortune get to go, and we are using what is available to us now. If Shackleton had the ability to Tweet, I’m sure he would have Tweeted during his expeditions to Antarctica. On station we have limited time and bandwidth and have help from people on the ground who will help get our information out.
I do get feedback (from his social media posts) and some of the comments will get condensed and sent up to me in an email message, and I take the time to read those. Some bring a pretty big smile to my face. And it is neat to see that you are having an effect, that people are following what you are doing and listening to some of the stories you have to tell.
Pettit talked more about his opportunity for photographing unique astronomical events in space:
Don Pettit: One of the most amazing things is to be able to see something like a comet. We saw a comet, saw a solar eclipse and the transit of Venus, so had a number of fairly rare natural astronomical phenomena. When you see it from space, the vantage point is slightly different and allows you to see the physics of the situation– the shadow of the Moon appears as a dark spot on Earth, and lets you know that, gosh, the guys who wrote the textbooks about this figured all this out without seeing it from this vantage point.
Pettit added that the Transit of Venus was an amazing opportunity, and he brought a full-aperture solar telescope just for the occasion. He said he hopes the images they were able to collect hopefully will be useful in the whole ensemble of images that people took from Earth of the event.
Pettit has now spent a total of 370 days in space, more than a year of his life, and he was asked if he would like to go back:
Don Pettit: I would love to fly back to station again, but there is a bunch of folks standing in line, and everyone needs to wait their turn — there is certain fairness on how this happens. I will throw my name in the hat and get back in line and see what happens. The assignments now go out to about 2015, so if space station has a lifetime to about 2020, about half of all the people going to station have already been assigned.
Later Pettit said: I would go back to space in a nano-second. That’s what I do for a living and give me a few days to get my feet on the ground and I’m ready to go again.
And then he was asked if he would go on a mission away from Earth:
Don Pettit: I’d be willing to immigrate into space and not come back as long as we would have the technology to survive. Going one way to Mars and then running out of air to die is not in the cards. If you went to Mars like people went from continental Europe to the New World, I’d load my family up in the next rocket and we’d immigrate into space.
Caption: Another star-trail image by Pettit.
Another question was if being in space ever gets routine.
Don Pettit: It can be both special and routine. Take your breakfast for example. I found that humans like to have a routine for breakfast, and that gives you certain amount of comfort. But it doesn’t get routine as far as living and working in space. Every day has another eye-opening piece of excitement and you learn something new and that is part of being on a frontier.
About his blogging from the perspective of a zucchini plant in space:
Don Pettit: I wanted to write from the equivalent of a potted plant in the corner, and I wanted to write about it because the technology associated with it is not necessarily straightforward, and I could make it like a gardening manual in space. I decided to write the story of how you grow plants in space from the eyes of a zucchini.
Pettit was asked which transition is harder: going to space or coming back to Earth:
Don Pettit: The adjustment going to space is easier than coming back down to Earth. It takes a while to get rid of this heavy feeling.
Later he said that his first thoughts on landing were, “Welcome back to gravity this is really tough,” and then “when do I get to hug my boys?”
What does the ISS smell like?
Don Pettit: Part machine shop, engine room, laboratory and then when you are cooking dinner and rip open a pouch of stew you can smell a little roast beef.
Caption: The integrated vehicle stack for a deep space human mission concept. Credit: NASA
There are all sorts of details to take into consideration when traveling in deep space, such as where to go, what to do, and how to get back. Since starry-eyed dreamers often don’t take into account the practical realities of putting a human into such an environment, steely-eyed engineers are left to decide the gritty details of such a mission, such as how many pairs of socks are needed. Fortunately, NASA employs engineers who are both steely-eyed and starry-eyed, and their work has just produced an interesting report discussing the human side of deep-space exploration.
The paper, written by Michelle Rucker and Shelby Thompson of Johnson Space Center, focuses on the requirements of a ship that will take the first wave of deep-space human explorers to a near Earth asteroid (NEA), hopefully in the near future. The team stressed that they were only looking at very basic requirements and the paper only provides a basis to work from for more specialized teams that will design individual sub-systems.
To develop the basics, the team had to make some assumptions, and these assumptions are revealing for anyone interested in NASA’s future human exploration plans. The team assumed a 380 day round-trip mission to a NEA, crewed by 4 people, with just 30 days of the mission spent at the asteroid. They assumed the availability of a variety of mission-specific vehicles as well as the ability to perform extra-vehicular activities and dock with the Orion crew module, still under development at NASA. Nevertheless, such assumptions could lead to an exciting mission if they hold throughout the design process.
Caption: Two weeks worth of clothing in a crew transport bag. Credit: NASA
In addition to the assumptions, the team took advantage of knowledge gained from years of working on the International Space Station, and helped in considering details like how many packets of powdered drinks are needed for the duration of the trip as well as how much toothpaste a person uses daily in space. All of these numbers were crunched to derive overall dimensions for the craft.
Although, the sum of these volumes produced an over-sized spacecraft, the team evaluated activity frequency and duration to identify functions that could share a common volume without conflict, reducing the total volume by 24%. After adding 10% for growth, the resulting functional pressurized volume was calculated to be a minimum of 268 cu m (9,464 cu ft) distributed over the functions.
Those dimensions resulted in a 4 story structure totaling almost 280 cubic meters (10,000 cubic feet) of pressurized space that looks like it could have come right off the set of Prometheus.
Caption: Conceptual Deep Space Habitat layout. Credit: NASA/Michelle Rucker and Shelby Thompson.
The various subsystems can be broken into seven different categories. The largest is the equipment section, which takes up 22% of the spacecraft. This space would include things like the environmental control panel and navigation and communications equipment. However, the designers thought that the propulsion system, most likely a solar electric propulsion system, and all required control equipment would be part of an attachable module and would not make up part of the main living space of the habitat.
Mission Operations and Spacecraft Operations make up the next largest chunks of the habitable space, each clocking in at 20%. These areas are reserved for mission specific tasks that are not yet defined and general tasks that are necessary no matter what type of mission the habitat is launched on, such as basic maintenance and repair.
Much consideration was given to the psychological and privacy needs of the inhabitants of the ship and as such about 30% of the total habitable space is devoted to the care of the people on board, with 18% going to “individual” care and 12% going to “group” care.
Caption: Group living and operations area of a conceptual deep space habitat module. Credit: NASA/Michelle Rucker and Shelby Thompson.
Individual care includes basics such as beds, full body cleansing and toilets. Group care is more for multi-person activities, such as a dining hall, food prep and meeting areas. The last 2% of the area on board was allotted to “contingency” planning. It fits its namesake well, as the design team hopes never to have to use the space whose primary purpose is to deal with cabin depressurization, crew fatality or other unforeseeable disaster. There is also a shielded area in the interior of the habitat for refuge for the crew during a solar radiation event.
With the basics laid out, it is now up to the specialist teams to develop the next set of requirements for the sub-systems. The final design will only be completed after a long and iterative process of calculation and re-calculation, design and re-design. Assuming the teams persevere, and the space agency receives adequate funding for developing a deep space mission to an asteroid, NASA’s detail-oriented engineers will have developed a very flexible habitat module to use on the next step of human space exploration that dreamers everywhere can get excited about.
Our friend Andrew Chaikin is passionate about space exploration and like many, is concerned about the budget cuts that threaten to starve NASA’s planetary science program. He has created this new video as a call to action for those of us in the US to contact our representatives, and anyone around the world to make a statement of how important exploration is to humanity. “I’m fighting back with passion,” Andy says, “Passion for the incredible adventure that began half a century ago and has given us countless wonders and amazing discoveries…Please share it with your friends and family. And tell Washington, ‘We Must Explore!'”
This artist's illustration gives an impression of how common planets are around the stars in the Milky Way. Credit: NASA, ESA, and M. Kornmesser (ESO)
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For many of us who grew up listening to Carl Sagan, watching robotic spacecraft travel to other worlds, and indulging in science fiction books and movies, it’s a given: one day we’ll find life somewhere else in the solar system or Universe. But are we being too optimistic? Two researchers say that our hopes and expectations of finding ET might be based more on optimism than scientific evidence, and the recent discoveries of exoplanets that might be similar to Earth are probably getting everyone’s hopes up too high.
Astrophysicist Edwin Turner from Princeton and researcher David Spiegel from the Institute for Advanced Study say the idea that life has or could arise in an another Earth-like environment has only a small amount of supporting evidence, most of it extrapolated from what is known about abiogenesis, or the emergence of life, on early Earth. Their research says the expectations of life cropping up on exoplanets are largely based on the assumption that it would or will happen if the same conditions as Earth exist elsewhere.
Using a Bayesian analysis — which weighs how much of a scientific conclusion stems from actual data and how much comes from the prior assumptions of the scientist — the duo concluded that current knowledge about life on other planets suggests Earth might be a cosmic aberration, where life took shape unusually fast and furious. If so, then the chances of the average terrestrial planet hosting life would be low.
“Fossil evidence suggests that life began very early in Earth’s history and that has led people to determine that life might be quite common in the universe because it happened so quickly here, but the knowledge about life on Earth simply doesn’t reveal much about the actual probability of life on other planets,” Turner said.
So, if a scientist starts out assuming that the chances of life existing on another planet is as large as on Earth, then their scientific results will be presented in a way that supports that likelihood, Turner said.
“Information about that probability comes largely from the assumptions scientists have going in, and some of the most optimistic conclusions have been based almost entirely on those assumptions,” he said.
Therefore, with all the exoplanets being found, and as our discoveries have become more and more enticingly Earth-like, these planets have our knowledge of life on Earth projected onto them, the researchers said.
How does an exoplanet researcher feel about this? Turner and Spiegel found a sympathetic soul in Joshua Winn from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who said that the two cast convincing doubt on a prominent basis for expecting extraterrestrial life.
“There is a commonly heard argument that life must be common or else it would not have arisen so quickly after the surface of the Earth cooled,” Winn said. “This argument seems persuasive on its face, but Spiegel and Turner have shown it doesn’t stand up to a rigorous statistical examination — with a sample of only one life-bearing planet, one cannot even get a ballpark estimate of the abundance of life in the universe.
It is true that science is about facts — not about what your gut feelings are. But there’s a strong argument that we need inspiration to do the best, most engaging science. Writer Andrew Zimmerman Jones blogged today at PBS about how many scientists were spurred to follow their careers by reading science fiction when they were young.
“The finest science fiction is inspired by the same thing that has inspired the greatest science discoveries throughout the ages: optimism for the future,” wrote Jones.
And perhaps that is what is mostly behind our hopes for finding ET: optimism for the future of the human race, that we really could one day travel to other worlds, and find new friends — “to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before…”
Turner and Spiegel do say they are not making judgments, but just analyzing existing data that suggests the debate about the existence of life on other planets is framed largely by the prior assumptions of the participants.
“It could easily be that life came about on Earth one way, but came about on other planets in other ways, if it came about at all,” Turner said. “The best way to find out, of course, is to look. But I don’t think we’ll know by debating the process of how life came about on Earth.”
Poster art for the Russian Phobos-Grunt mission. Russian Federal Space Agency)/IKI
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Russia says “eish odin ras”* for its Mars moon lander mission, according to Roscomos chief Vladimir Popovkin.
If the European Space Agency does not include Russia in its ExoMars program, a two-mission plan to explore Mars via orbiter and lander and then with twin rovers (slated to launch in 2016 and 2018, respectively), Roscosmos will try for a “take-two” on their failed Phobos-Grunt mission.
“We are holding consultations with the ESA about Russia’s participation in the ExoMars project… if no deal is reached, we will repeat the attempt,” said Popovkin on Tuesday.
Phobos-Grunt, an ambitious mission to land on the larger of Mars’ two moons, collect samples and return them to Earth, launched successfully on November 9, 2011. It became caught in low-Earth orbit shortly afterwards, its upper-stage engines having failed to ignite.
After many attempts to communicate with the stranded spacecraft, Phobos-Grunt re-entered the atmosphere and impacted on January 15. Best estimates place the impact site in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of southern Chile.
The failed mission also included a Chinese orbiter and a life experiment from The Planetary Society.
Russia is offering ESA the use of a Proton launch vehicle for inclusion into the ExoMars mission, now that the U.S. has canceled its joint participation and Atlas carrier. Roscomos and ESA are scheduled to discuss the potential partnership in February.
