Fobos-Grunt rocket 2nd stage debris may fall in India Ocean Nov 22
According to specified data of a website subordinate to the US Strategic Command, the actual time of the fall may differ from the forecast time by up to 24 hours either way. According to the website data, which are constantly updated, the forecasted point of fall of the stage is at the coordinates: 11 degrees South latitude, 109 degrees, East longitude.
The launching of the Phobos-Soil station was carried out on November 9 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome by the Zenit-2SB launch vehicle. The station has successfully reached the low Earth orbit, from which it was to be transferred to an interplanetary trajectory from Earth to Mars by means of switching on the main propulsion system. Due to unknown reasons, the control system has failed to give a command to the first ignition of the propulsion system. All attempts to make contact the station have been futile so far.
Head of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos) Vladimir Popovkin said earlier that it would be right to say that the Phobos is "dead" in early December, "when the window closes" (for the possible flight of the expedition to Mars). "The Phobos existence end prognosis can be started when due to the orbit degradation its perigee altitude will be less than 180 kilometres," he added.
According to the agency head, Russia's Phobos-Grunt interplanetary research probe will stay on the orbit through January. "We have time till January inclusively, the spacecraft will be on the orbit but the window will close in early December," he said. "There are certain chances but so far we have no telemetry data to get a clear picture of what has happened," he said. "The problem lies in the fact that it takes time to adjust surveillance stations while the Phobos is running along an abnormal orbit, so a radio contact is only established for a time span of seven minutes."
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