Russians Fight to Save Mars Probe After Mishap

Russian space engineers scrambled Wednesday to salvage an ambitious science mission to Mars after the unmanned spacecraft became stranded in Earth orbit. If they are not successful, the probe, which is loaded with toxic fuel, could re-enter the atmosphere within days or weeks.

The spacecraft, a high-stakes effort to bring back soil samples from the Martian moon Phobos — and to return Russia to prominence in planetary exploration after a long dry spell — was launched from Kazakhstan atop a Zenit rocket early Wednesday. Russian officials said that the launching was normal. But then, once the spacecraft was in orbit, two planned firings of its propulsion system, intended to send it on the nearly yearlong journey to Mars, did not occur.

“The engines did not fire, not the first or the second time,” said Vladimir Popovkin, director of the Russian space agency Roscosmos.

An unnamed person in Russia’s space industry told the Interfax news agency that there had been warnings before the launching that glitches in the probe’s command and control system had not been fully resolved. “The risk of failure because of its abnormal operation was very high. Unfortunately, the worst forecasts have come true,” the person said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/10/science/space/russia-fights-to-save-mars-probe-after-launch-mishap.html?ref=world

The good news is that solar panels appear to have deployed, which may keep the batteries operational longer than the originally guessed three days.

http://satellite.tmcnet.com/topics/satellite/articles/237775-russia-phobos-grunt-mars-probe-stuck-low-earth.htm

The bad news is this almost never works.

http://why.knovel.com/all-engineering-news/1005-russian-scientists-rush-to-salvage-mars-probe.html

The worse news is that because it's still fully loaded for Mars transit, it's carrying over six tons of nitrogen tetroxide and hydrazine, which are the Hitler and Stalin of the chemical world. By themselves, they are toxic, corrosive, and unstable. When they meet, it's instant World War II.

(I can't do the calculations, but I would not be surprised to find that 6.4 tons of the two would yield the explosive equivalent of the payload of several flights of B-17s.)

Worse than that, the stage is in a very low Earth orbit which may decay (reenter) sooner than one could wish. I think one of the articles above suggests as little as four weeks.

Worse than that, since the craft can't be contacted, I assume it is not known whether the maintenance systems which keep the propellants stable are operational. If that stuff freezes, it has a chance of reentering somewhat intact, which could cause serious trouble across a wide area.

This is and has always been one of the known hazards of space travel. N2O4 + N2H4 (or some variant of its close cousins like UDMH and MMH), is the gold standard of space propellants; it's highly reliable because it is hypergolic, meaning they react on contact, under pressure or in a vacuum. They can both be stored and used as liquids, with high density and minimum use of space for massive output. That simplicity has made most of our missions in space, manned and unmanned, from the moon landings to the Orbiters, possible. Hopefully this incident will encourage all who aspire to space travel to devote even more effort to improving the control and safety of these chemicals, with a view to their eventual replacement by something less dangerous and difficult to control.