Monday, December 5, 2011

Quick Phobos/Grunt Update

The news trickling in about Phobos/Grunt is not good.

Two second exposure shows Phobos/Grunt is tumbling Click to enlarge
Experienced ground observers have seen signs that the spacecraft is tumbling. That's a dead spacecraft's signature.

Spaceflight101 has a roundup.

NASAspaceflight has the story too.

The brightside? It should be quite the fireball when it reenters!

PhobosGruntWatch should resume in a couple of weeks.
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3 comments:

  1. Baja BabeDecember 5, 2011 at 3:21 PM

    How much junk is up there in the outer spheres? Perhaps I should have bought space when it mattered?

    Low drop in gas prices due to the withdrawals of conflicts? After all the gov buys the most gas of all.

    Fireballs? MMM, another player in the sunshine of life.

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  2. Michael KhanDecember 8, 2011 at 1:29 PM

    Is that really a "two second exposure" in that image as the caption claims? That wouldn't be consistent with the length of the arc and the on-off-blinking. I think the exposure must be in the order of a couple of minutes.

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  3. TruckeeDaveDecember 8, 2011 at 5:36 PM

    Micheal, it appears to be a series of 2 second exposures. I found it here:

    http://twitter.com/#!/dewbow/status/143756494222000129

    ReplyDelete

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