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Phobos-Grunt Failure Due to Computer Problems, Cosmic Rays
Phobos-Grunt Model. This is a full-scale mockup of Russia’s Phobos-Grunt. The spacecraft was supposed to collect samples of soil on Mars’ moon Phobos and return them to Earth for study. Credit: CNES
Roscosmos said today that a computer malfunction caused by cosmic rays was the reason for the failure of the Phobos-Grunt spacecraft. The original mission was to do a sample return from Mars’ largest moon, but the spacecraft crashed back to Earth on January 15 after the rocket failed to send it out of Earth orbit shortly after the launch in November. This determination comes from a study done by a commission led by Yuri Koptev, former head of the Russian Space Agency.
“There was a restart of the two sets of on-board computer system so [it] moved to the highest energy saving mode and the standby command,” said Vladimir Popovkin, the head of the Russian Federal Space Agency, quoted by the Russian RIA Novosti news agency. “The most likely reason is the impact of heavy charged space particles.”
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© nancy for Universe Today, 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Missions, Phobos-Grunt, Roscosmos
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