By the way, 18.2 S 49.3 W is here:
http://maps.google.ru/maps?q=18.2+S...92969&sspn=7.169424,16.907959&vpsrc=6&t=m&z=4
:idk::facepalm:
MOSCOW, Jan 15 - RIA Novosti. Russian ballisticians confirmed coordinates of the central point of Phobos-Grunt's reentry: 310.7 degrees East and 18.2 degrees South with a long swath of debris deposit, told RIA Novosti a source in rocket and space industry.
The point with these coordinated is located in Brazilian state Goiás.
Eearlier information was that reentry happened over the Pacific Ocean.
The derelict Phobos-Grunt spacecraft has returned to Earth in a crash more spectacular than Tim Tebow’s flame-out in New England last night. Preliminary reports have the spacecraft re-entering in the South Pacific off the coast of Chile. However, the Twitterosphere is abuzz with alternate reports of it coming down over Brazil. A definite answer is due within the next day. There have been no reports of injuries.
{...}
Ah, so the foreign powers' plan was to strike BrasiliaBy the way, 18.2 S 49.3 W is here:
http://maps.google.ru/maps?q=18.2+S...92969&sspn=7.169424,16.907959&vpsrc=6&t=m&z=4
:idk::facepalm:
U.S. Radar May Have Damaged Russian Mars Probe - Paper
07:36 17/01/2012
MOSCOW, January 17 (RIA Novosti)
A powerful electromagnetic emission from a U.S. radar in the Pacific could have caused the malfunctioning of the Russian Phobos-Grunt probe, the Kommersant daily said on Tuesday.
A Russian government investigation commission is considering several causes of the failure, including a short circuit or “external impact,” the paper said citing an unnamed source in the Russian space industry.
“Experts do not dismiss the possibility that the probe could have accidentally come under the impact of emissions [from a U.S. radar stationed on the Marshall Islands], whose megawatt impulse triggered the malfunctioning of on-board electronics,” the source said.
The source did not specify the type of the radar, but said it was monitoring the trajectory of an asteroid at the time of the Phobos-Grunt launch.
The source stressed that it was more likely an accident rather than a determined act of sabotage.
The government commission officials have refused to comment on the claim, Kommersant said.
The commission is expected to inform the head of the Russian Federal Space Agency Roscosmos Vladimir Popovkin of the preliminary results of the investigation on January 20.
Popovkin earlier suggested that the inexplicable malfunction of the Russian spacecraft could have been caused by “interference from a foreign technical facility.”
The official results of the investigation will be made public on January 26, Kommersant said.
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20120117/170793805.html
I am most ashamed of Kommersant reporter Ivan Safronov-Jr. who wrote this. He has literally forsaken the face of his father. :facepalm:
I think a more likely explanation is an error with the telemetry stream causing something to go wrong.
U.S. Radar May Have Damaged Russian Mars Probe - Paper
To keep it straight: PhG has really passed zenith over Kwajalein at its 1st orbit at 20:44:30 UTC.
Going to the heart of it... The most sensible scenario of the spacecraft's loss orginating from insiders' sources, is like:
1. The initial failure to make the MDU burn is most probably happened because of a software error. In addition, post-mortem tests of the computer system revealed CPU load at more than 90%, which could easily be followed by failure and rebooting when any more instruments are switched on (star trackers, the Chinese probe) outside of trackable zone. No possibility of power supply failure is regarded viable at that moment, power system was beyond suspiction.
2. Speaking about the situation after the successful transmission of a command on the spacecraft: they have really switched on the X-band trasmitter, but this thing emits 40 W while consuming whole 200 W. After it was powered on, the occulation phases were long, which very quickly drained all batteries: first buffer accumulators, then chemical batteries, which then exploded on November, 28. And this was the end of the spacecraft's sensible life.