How Phobos Grunt was built



    I am very upset about what is happening now with the recently launched Phobos-Grunt satellite.

    Despite the peppy statements of the head of Roscosmos, I hardly believe that such a situation is really regular and the risk of this was calculated.

    By the way, a little about the history of satellite launches to Mars:

    Russian cosmonautics have never been lucky with Mars. Of the 18 Martian stations that were launched before 11/08/2011, four were killed in the launch site, four more remained in low Earth orbit due to accidents of the upper stages, and three were lost before they arrived at the “destination”, one did not was able to enter orbit around Mars, as it was "prescribed", the rest did not complete the flight program.

    Here is a chronicle of our attempts to send stations to Mars:

    10/10/1960 - 1M No. 1 - accident of the Lightning LV at the 3rd stage work site;
    10/14/1960 - 1M No. 2 - accident of the Lightning LV at the 3rd stage work site;
    10.24.1962 - Sputnik-22 (2MV-4 No. 3) - crash of the upper stage, the station could not be transferred to the interplanetary trajectory;
    11/01/1962 - Mars-1 (2MV-4 No. 4) - remained operational until 03/21/1963, after which communication with it was lost. 06/19/1963 passed at a distance of 165 thousand kilometers from the surface of Mars;
    11/04/1962 - Sputnik-24 (2MV-3 No. 1) - crash of the upper stage, the station could not be transferred to the interplanetary trajectory;
    11/30/1964 - Probe-2 (3MV-4A No. 2) - the connection was lost in April 1965. 08/06/1965 passed at a distance of 1,500 kilometers from the surface of Mars;
    03/27/1969 - M-69 No. 521 - accident of the Proton-K LV at the 3rd stage operation site;
    04/02/1969 - M-69 No. 522 - accident of the Proton-K LV at the 1st stage operation site;
    05/10/1971 - Cosmos-419 (M-71 No. 170) - crash of the upper stage, the station could not be transferred to the interplanetary trajectory;
    05/19/1971 - Mars-2 (M-71 No. 171) - 11/27/1971 the station entered into orbit around Mars. The descent vehicle made a hard landing on the planet’s surface that same day (a soft landing was assumed, but the spacecraft could not be braked);
    05/28/1971 - Mars-3 (M-71 No. 172) - 02/02/1971 the station entered into orbit around Mars. The lander on the same day made a soft landing on the surface of the planet. Work on the surface of Mars lasted 20 seconds, after which communication with the device suddenly ceased);
    07.21.1973 - Mars-4 (M-73 No. 52C) - 02.10.1974 failed to bring the station into orbit around Mars;
    07.25.1973 - Mars-5 (M-73 No. 53C) - 02/12/1974 the station entered into orbit around Mars;
    08/05/1973 - Mars-6 (M-73 No. 50P) - 03/12/1974 the station flew near Mars. Separated from the span, the descent vehicle made a soft landing on the surface of the planet. However, communication with him was lost;
    08/09/1973 - Mars-7 (M-73 No. 51P) - 03/09/1974 the station flew near Mars. The descent vehicle, separated from the flight stage, “missed” and flew into the depths of space;
    07/07/1988 - Phobos-1 (1F No. 101) - 09/01/1988 communication with the station was lost;
    07/12/1988 - Phobos-2 (1F No. 102) - 01/29/1989 the station entered into orbit around Mars. 03/27/1989 communication with the station was lost. Landing on Phobos did not take place;
    11.16.1996 - Mars-96 - crash of the upper stage, the station could not be transferred to the interplanetary trajectory.
    source


    While reading comments on the next article about “Phobos-Grunt” in the spirit of “everything is fine” I found a link to an open letter from Nikolai Vasilyevich Moroz, judging by the letter a year ago, a former employee of OKB FSUE NPO im. S.A. Lavochkina, "where Phobos-Grunta was going to and most of its nodes were being developed. This is of the greatest interest, since Morozov describes in this open letter very interesting nuances of the work of the Design Bureau and makes some predictions, one of which, unfortunately, came true when the Phobos-Grunt was launched.

    I won’t draw any conclusions, but I can say that after reading these materials I felt even sadder and more offensive for the Russian space program.

    Additional links:
    1) A more detailed description of spacecraft flights to Mars (spacecraft of all countries).
    2) Interviewwith Maxim Martynov, Deputy General Designer - Head of OKB FSUE “S.A. Lavochkina ", chief designer for the project" Phobos-Grunt ". Interviews were taken immediately before the launch of the satellite and the letter mentioned above is also mentioned there.

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