Despite the failure of the first space mission Phobos-Grunt, the Federal Space Agency Roscosmos is planning to send a new automatic interplanetary station Phobos-Grunt 2 to the Phobos Martian satellite by 2020.
The launch of the first AMC Phobos-Grunt took place on November 9, 2011. However, as a result of the breakdown of the march propulsion system of the spacecraft, it could not be brought out of the Earth and the probe remained in low earth orbit. On January 15, 2012, Phobos-Grunt burnt in the dense atmosphere of our planet, and its remains fell in the South Pacific off the coast of Chile.
However, the Russian space agency is going to build a new spacecraft, whose task will be to study Phobos, one of the satellites of the Red Planet. For the mission "Phobos-Grunt 2" scientists are going to use an improved version of the probe, as well as an improved version of the collector of scientific samples.
As planned by the engineers, the space research apparatus will consist of a small landing module designed for docking with the surface of Phobos, collecting the necessary samples of its soil and subsequent return to Earth to study and analyze the collected data.
The mystery of the nature of the appearance of Phobos has tormented scientists for a long time and has been the subject of controversy for many years. When exactly did Phobos appear? Is the satellite of Mars its breakaway part as a result of some distant collision? Or is it an ordinary asteroid flying past, which was stopped by the gravitational forces of the planet? Only a deep analysis of the satellite’s surface material will allow scientists to determine the most appropriate scenarios, or perhaps even tell that none of them is wrong. To solve these problems, the first Phobos-Grunt mission was launched, which unfortunately turned into a failure.
“When the new module reaches Mars, it takes only a small adjustment of the flight path so that it can reach Phobos. When we reach the satellite and land on Phobos-Grunt 2, we will be able to take samples of the soil and then determine what percentage of its surface belongs to (and does it belong to) Mars. Is Phobos a result of the collision or is it an asteroid gravitational forces of the planet gravitating to Mars, ”comments Kenneth Remsley, a planetologist from Brown University.
“According to our assumptions, only the last 100 million years the orbit of Phobos is located very close to Mars. Long before that, its orbit was much higher, ”adds the scientist.
Phobos compared to the moon - very small. Its radius is only 11.1 kilometers, and its surface area is 6,100 square kilometers. Despite such modest size, Phobos is 8 times larger than the second moon of Mars - Deimos.
The article is based on materials .
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