Defense Ministry official Alexei Zolotukhin told reporters tersely that “Phobos-Grunt fragments have crashed down in the Pacific Ocean”. There’s not much official news from the Russian Space Agency Roscosmos yet though, other than information narrowing down the ultimate crash site to an empty area of the Pacific Ocean around 1,250 miles east of Southern Chile.

Others, however, are claiming that some fragments actually landed in Brazil, thousands of miles to the North East. At the time of writing, there has been no independent confirmation of the probe’s impact point.

Why it’s important to know where Phobos-Grunt fell

No-one had been able to predict where exactly the probe would fall, beyond confirming that it could hit anywhere between the latitudes 51.4° North and 51.4° South. That’s a pretty massive area, encompassing virtually all of the populated areas of the globe from Southern Canada and Northern Europe all the way down to Australia and the Southern tip of Chile. You can see a graphic illustration of where it might land from this space.com infographic.

Source:LiveScience

Interestingly, almost none of Russia was within the potential crash zone…

The location of the crash zone was so important because it was believed that, although Phobos-Grunt would break up in the atmosphere, some very large chunks of the probe would still survive relatively intact and could cause damage if they landed in a populated area.

There was also some concern that the spacecraft’s fuel, which is highly toxic, could scatter in the atmosphere. The fuel tank is made of a kind of Aluminum that contains unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH), designed to ensure that the fuel tanks explode high in the atmosphere, dispersing any fuel. However, Martin Ross, director of The Aerospace Corp.’s Center for Launch Emissions and Atmospheric Research, told space.com that:

“What is needed is a full accounting of the material that gets vaporized and re-condenses into small particles that may remain in the upper atmosphere for many years. Some of these particles may influence chemistry, since the vaporized materials are exotic in some cases, in that region of the atmosphere in subtle ways. It remains a question mark.”

There is some hope that some of the more substantial fragments of the probe might be recovered, although previous attempts to recover crashed spacecraft from the ocean have recently been largely unsuccessful.

A disastrous year for Roscosmos?

The crash brings to an end an thoroughly depressing year for Roscosmos. The Russian Government had trumpeted 2011 as the ‘Year of Space’ but Phobos-Grunt was the fourth high profile mission failure in just 12 months.

Set on the grand scale of things, this is actually a fairly small percentage of Russia’s overall space program (less than 10% of the 48 planned launches), but the high profile nature of the failures have been an embarrassment to Russia. Although none of the crashes has involved cosmonauts and there have been no human casualties, the string of failures has led to questions about the safety of Russia’s manned launches. However, with the termination of the space shuttle program, Russia is currently the only nation capable of launching humans into space and re-supplying the International Space Station, so it’s likely that launches will continue.

In an attempt to take control of the situation, the Russian Government today announced that it would be launching an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the crash. The investigation is to be led by Dmitry Rogozin, former Russian Ambassador to NATO and newly appointed Deputy Prime Minister. In keeping with his somewhat direct approach to politics, Rogozin announced the news on his Facebook page, telling the world “I am taking the investigation into the reasons for the Phobos-Grunt failure under personal control.”

Further Reading

If you’re interested in this story, there is plenty of coverage out there around the internet. In particular, I recommend Russian Space Web’s comprehensive coverage of the entire Phobos-Grunt mission. Space news site Universe Today also has a report on today’s Phobos-Grunt crash and, if you scroll down to the bottom of their report, you can see their historical coverage of the mission. The ever excellent space.com also has live, blow by blow, coverage of the event.

You could also try the official Roscosmos website, but it’s down at the moment because the high level of interest in the probe’s crash has brought down the site’s servers. Hopefully it’ll be back up and running again soon.

Phobos-Grunt Mars Probe falls to earth is a post from: Siberian Light

The first, and most headline-worthy, is a mission to Jupiter that will also include a stopover at one of Jupiter’s moons. The mission – known as JUICE (Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer) – is likely to take place after 2020, and replace a planned joint ESA-NASA mission that looks like it won’t get off the ground in the near future.

Other joint missions planned include one to Earth’s moon that will attempt to collect samples of soil from the Moon and return them to Earth for analysis, and another to Venus to investigate its atmosphere. Most of the missions agreed are expected to take place sometime between 2016 and 2020.

Jupiter and its moons

The possibility of Russia joining additional ESA missions was also discussed . “The meeting participants summarized the work of the working groups on science and the elimination created in August 2011, and also exchanged views on prospects for Russia’s participation in the ExoMars [Exobiology on Mars] project,” Roscosmos said.

Although slightly overshadowed by the recent loss of Russia’s Phobos-Grunt mission to Mars, the news presents further evidence of the increasingly close relationship being built between Roscosmos and the ESA as both attempt to establish themselves as viable alternatives to NASA after the termination of its shuttle fleet.  Most notably, Russian rockets have recently begun launching from the ESA’s spaceport in French Guiana.

Russia Jupiter mission agreed with ESA is a post from: Siberian Light

By building a base in Cuba, Russia would not only consolidate some of its recent political gains in the Americas, but would gain access to a far better placed launch site than its current Baikonur Cosmodrome.

In return, Cuba would gain access to some Russian technology – in particular, there has been talk of giving Cuba access to the Russian GLONASS satellite navigation system.� The development would also provide plenty of jobs and a boost to the struggling Cuban economy.

A Russian foothold in the Americas?

Russia’s announcement is sure to raise alarm bells in Washington – combine the recent decision to hold joint military exercises with Venezuela with rumours that Russian nuclear bombers could soon be based in Cuba and it really does appear that Russia is launching a concerted attempt to develop a foothold in the Americas.

Recent Russian moves in Latin America have partly been inspired by the American reaction to the war in Georgia – sending a warship to deliver aid to Georgia certainly wasn’t appreciated by the Kremlin.

But really we should view this in the wider context of increasing tensions between East and West, and renewed confidence in Russia.� For the past couple of decades, Russia has had to gradually withdraw from every geopolitical gain it made during the Tsarist and Soviet eras.

But today Russia is a state that is clearly growing in strength, whereas it seems that American power is on the wane.� It’s hardly surprising, therefore, that Russia wants to probe American resistance.� And what better way to test America’s strength than to start building relationships with rogue states in America’s own backyard?

A space center in Cuba has practical benefits too

The development of a space base in Cuba isn’t just about geopolitics – there are sound technical reasons for building a launch center in the Caribbean too.

At the moment, the Russian space program is almost entirely reliant on the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Southern Kazakhstan.� Sited in what was, at the time, one of the most Southerly, most remote parts of the Soviet Union, Baikonur was the best site the Soviet space program had access to during the Cold War.

But in today’s more cost conscious world, Baikonur isn’t a particularly good site for launching rockets.

Baikonur is too far North, for one thing.� From the perspective of efficiency, the ideal place to launch a satellite is on the equator, where the rotational speed of the earth is greatest.� The further a launch site is from the equator, the more fuel is needed to get into orbit.

Baikonur also suffers from being landlocked, which means that spacecraft must fly over populated areas during takeoff.� Space travel is getting safer all the time, and Baikonur isn’t in a densely populated area, but the risk of a crash in an inhabited area is far greater at Baikonur than at a launch site near the ocean, where the worst that can happen is that a falling spacecraft would make a big spash.

Russia to build Space Base in Cuba is a post from: Siberian Light

The Buran was only ever flown once – an unmanned test flight in November 1988. Future flights were planned, but the collapse of the Soviet Union and economic hardship in Russia meant that the Buran programme was cancelled in 1993.

The last surviving Buran has been exhibited around the world – most notably at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney – and will now be on display at the Technik Museum Speyer, near Mannheim, Germany.

Apparently, the cost of transporting the Buran to Germany, and the construction of a new hall to house the shuttle, was over $15 million.

(Pictures with permission of: Torsten Dillenburg, Marc-Cologne, Walter Kraegeloh, eternaltedium, Joachim S Muller and Netream.

Russian Space Shuttle Buran sails the Rhine is a post from: Siberian Light

Notice the blur in the middle? I didn’t put it there – Google did. Click on this link to check for yourself.

Then scroll out a bit, using the controls of the left of the screen. Notice anything else?

Yep – the blurred out area is in the Russian Far East.

Anyone got any ideas about what’s been airbrushed out?

What's Google Maps hiding? is a post from: Siberian Light

�That is correct, Colonel. Our captain has been taken into custody by what appears to be a Soviet military unit.� Spock barely moved as he spoke. �If my suspicion is correct, they may believe Captain Kirk to be an American espionage agent. If this is so, then his life is in grave danger.�

Steve�s face grew somber. �That would be a pretty fair assumption. Where do you think he was captured?�

�About 67.3km Northeast of Irkutsk,� the Vulcan replied.

Steve�s brow furrowed. �There�s a secret military installation in that area. If your Captain was down there, you have a problem on your hands. What was he doing down there, anyway?�

�We were working on an experiment, there was an error, and Captain Kirk was part of the recovery party sent down to retrieve the experiment.� Spock was determined to give Steve as much information as he could without telling him anything.

Now, if I were a Star Trek fan-fiction writer (which I am not), or even Mr Spock (which I am also not) I’d be taking this opportunity to make the most of Ensign Pavel Chekov. He is, after all, a Russian and, presumably, speaks a little of the local lingo. But, does he appear in this story? Ummm, no.

Update: Goodness, I almost forgot to mention – the Steve mentioned above is Steve Austin, the Six Million Dollar Man. So, we have a Star Trek / Six Million Dollar Man / Soviet Union crossover. At least, I assume it’s the Six Million Dollar Steve Austin, and not the guy from WWF – because that would be just too wierd.

Captain Kirk in Irkutsk is a post from: Siberian Light

In a rather timely decision, the BBC have just decided to publish a feature article about the Russian cosmodrome at Plesetsk. Now, Plesetsk isn’t a closed city, but Mirny, the town next door is. The BBC reporter managed to get a precious invitation to visit Mirny, and this is what he saw:

Home to about 80,000 military staff and their families, at first glance, it seems like any other town, save the austere apartment blocks and lack of road signs.

We are taken to the space museum in the town square, then the kindergarten, where children dressed in traditional clothes sing Russian songs.

Despite the presence of occasional teams of foreign engineers, most of the town remains off limits to visitors. They can walk around only a small central section and must not stray outside the designated area.

The town was never on the map and its inhabitants can still only be officially reached under a military field post number.

I’ve just been to see if I could find Mirny using both GoogleEarth (the satellite imaging programme) and Expedia maps. I tried every spelling of the name I could think of without any luck (although I did discover there is a village with the same name in Southern Russia). I think I’ll have to investigate further, to see whether any of the closed cities that the Russian government has admitted to (and Mirny isn’t one of them) are on any maps.

So far, the only other account I’ve been able to find about a visit to a closed city, is Tajikblog’s visit to Taboshar, the city where the uranium for the first Soviet nuclear bombs was mined. Taboshar – in Tajikistan, by the way, and not Russia – is no longer a closed city. But it certainly doesn’t seem a very welcoming place…

Either way, we just slowly begin to explore the town. It�s really quite a nice town with birch trees and huge stone houses lining the streets, aside from the fact that most of the buildings are empty and starting to fall apart. Soon enough, though, another set of suspicious men appears (with their wives and children in tow, not exactly an intimidating sight) and the confrontation begins.

The mayor (who prior to this had a good reputation among internationals) was at the center of the posse. I wanted to meet him anyway hoping for a tour, so this was as fine a time as any to say hello. I must have caught him at a bad time, though, as his mood was sour.

After the initial �hi I�m Peter XXX, photographer from New York� schtick, it was time for the inquisition.
Why are you here? Who guided you here? What do you know about this town? Etc. etc.
Nargiza steadfastly translates the questions and my answers, but suddenly his suspicion and temper rise.

One thing that set him off, I think was my knowledge of the town�s having a high-tech science lab. Stephanie told me about it as the mayor�s sad attempt to attract people to his town, to create a center for technology. Maybe something else is going on, because he certainly didn�t want to speak about it.

I’m going to keep searching for stories about Russian closed cities (and others around the Former Soviet Union if I can find them). If you have any links, or stories of your own, please feel free to share them here.

Closed cities from the inside is a post from: Siberian Light

It’s all but official�Russia and Europe will soon embark on a cooperative effort to build a next-generation manned space shuttle. Speaking at the Paris Air Show, in Le Bourget, France, in June, Russian space officials confirmed earlier reports from Moscow that their partners at the European Space Agency would join the Russian effort to build a new reusable orbiter, dubbed Kliper. After the cautious optimism they expressed at the beginning of 2005, Russians are now confident that their European partners will be on board for the largest, boldest Russian endeavor in spaceflight in more than a decade.

[...] Co-operation with Europe promises to give Russia unprecedented flexibility in its access to orbit. Bound by its geographic position, historically Russia has paid a heavy penalty in payload weight for launching its spacecraft from such sites as Baikonur or Plesetsk, both far from the equator. Today, RKK is seriously considering either launching Kliper on top of the existing Zenit rocket from a floating platform in the Pacific Ocean or on upgrading the Soyuz rocket, which could fly from the equatorial site in Kourou, French Guiana.

The space geek in me thinks that this could be great news – especially at a time when NASA’s troubled space shuttle program seems to be holding back development in the US.  The Kliper (see here for a Wikipedia article about it) isn’t a comparable craft to the Shuttle in many ways, but it is certainly a step in the right direction. 

The Russian Space Agency seems to have a good eye for collaborative partnerships, and also for the exploitation of the business aspect of space travel, so I wouldn’t be all that surprised to see the Russian Space Agency also begin forging ties with some of the private companies that are beginning to make their first forays into space-travel.  A partnership with Scaled Composites, for example, who were the company behind Spaceship One, the first private craft to reach space (and make it back down to earth), would open up a wealth of possibilities.  When you consider the RSA’s ingenuity, their ability to bring in projects cheaply and far closer to budget than NASA, and their wealth of cheap, but highly skilled scientists and technicians, private companies may find it far more profitable to work with Russia than with anyone else in the space industry.

[Hat tip: A Fistful of Euros]

Russia to join forces with European Space Agency is a post from: Siberian Light