Phobos-Grunt Launches To Retrieve a Sample of Phobos 65
An anonymous reader writes with news that Russia's Phobos-Grunt spacecraft has launched, taking the first step on its mission to travel to Phobos, the larger of Mars' two moons. When (and if — see below) it lands on Phobos, the probe will collect a soil sample and attempt to return it to Earth.
"Russia’s Federal Space Agency said the craft separated successfully from the booster about 11 minutes later. ... The return vehicle is expected to carry up to 200 grams (7 ounces) of soil from Phobos back to Earth in August 2014. The $170 million endeavor would be Russia’s first interplanetary mission since Soviet times. A previous 1996 robotic mission to Mars ended in failure when the probe crashed in the Pacific following an engine failure."
Unfortunately, there appears to have been a problem with the launch. Details are uncertain at this point, but the probe reportedly made it to orbit intact, and the mission is not necessarily ruined.
Re:7 oz of material returned (Score:5, Informative)
there isn't that much additional fuel involved in bumping the payload up from a single serving soda to a family size 12 pack, is there?
For a retun trip to mars, the mass ratio is around 100 parts fuel for 1 part sample return. It scales pretty linearly. It doesn't matter that it spends most time coasting, you have to accelerate it to the same delta-v regardless of the mass.
Re:More updates (Score:1, Informative)
Update 12:00 PST. Vladimir Putin reports that "The cacodemons aren't so difficult".
Re:more crap (Score:5, Informative)
Since we all know they literally burn the money for fuel in the rockets. It doesn't get spent on the components and then keep circulating in the economy or anything. Nope, burned to a cinder, never to be spent again... -sigh-
foxnews.com -> Goodbye (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah... ./ shows me that it links to FOX "News". Sorry mate. Ain't gonna fall for that. It's like the Goatse of news. If you like what you see, sonething is wrong with you. ;)