With Christmas crowds on My Mountain, chores around the DaveCave, and Holiday closures, lots of stuff that interests me has escaped through the cracks this week.
After I took Christmas Night off when lack of snowmaking temps lightened the work load, I returned to the DaveCave around 0100, and started looking for some Phobos/Grunt news...it's been quiet all week...too quiet...
Roscosmos, the Russian Space Agency continues to struggle. Friday, a Soyuz rocket carrying a Russian military communications satellite failed during it's third stage rocket burn, and crashed in Siberia. Ironically, some debris landed on a house on Cosmonaut Street!
On the Phobos/Grunt front, not much new was forthcoming until today. Russia's National News Agency, RIA Novosti reports that USSTRATCOM says Phobos/Grunt will reenter over Afghanistan on January 14th, around 2:22PM PST
I'm not a rocket scientist, but the Sun has been stirring a bit of late, sunspots are appearing with greater frequency, and a Coronal Mass Ejection emanating from Sunspot 1387 will strike a glancing blow to Earth on December 28th. While not a "Killshot" by any means, the M4 class flare will cause auroras over the poles, and may puff up the atmosphere enough to increase drag on Phobos/Grunt, and hasten it's orbital decay.
CorduroyPlanet's Phobos/GruntWatch is anxious to fire up after the New Year's Celebrations!
Stay tuned.
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