Images from the recent flyby of Phobos, on 7 March 2010, are released today. The images show Mars’ rocky moon in exquisite detail, with a resolution of just 4.4 metres per pixel. They show the proposed landing sites for the forthcoming Phobos-Grunt mission.
ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft orbits the Red Planet in a highly elliptical, polar orbit that brings it close to Phobos every five months. It is the only spacecraft currently in orbit around Mars whose orbit reaches far enough from the planet to provide a close-up view of Phobos.
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Like our Moon, Phobos always shows the same side to the planet, so it is only by flying outside the orbit that it becomes possible to observe the far side. Mars Express did just this on 7, 10 and 13 March 2010. Mars Express also collected data with other instruments.
Phobos is an irregular body measuring some 27 × 22 × 19 km. Its origin is debated. It appears to share many surface characteristics with the class of ‘carbonaceous C-type’ asteroids, which suggests it might have been captured from this population. However, it is difficult to explain either the capture mechanism or the subsequent evolution of the orbit into the equatorial plane of Mars. An alternative hypothesis is that it formed around Mars, and is therefore a remnant from the planetary formation period.
In 2011 Russia will send a mission called Phobos–Grunt (meaning Phobos Soil) to land on the martian moon, collect a soil sample and return it to Earth for analysis.
The High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) onboard the ESA spacecraft Mars Express took this image of the Phobos Grunt landing area using the HRSC nadir channel on 7 March 2010, HRSC Orbit 7915. The image resolution is 4.4m per pixel and the insert marks the proposed landing region and sites for Phobos-Grunt. Credits: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum)
For operational and landing safety reasons, the proposed landing sites were selected on the far side of Phobos within the area 5°S-5°N, 230-235°E. This region was imaged by the HRSC high-resolution camera of Mars Express during the July-August 2008 flybys of Phobos. But new HRSC images showing the vicinity of the landing area under different conditions, such as better illumination from the Sun, remain highly valuable for mission planners.
It is expected that Earth-based ESA stations will take part in controlling Phobos-Grunt, receiving telemetry and making trajectory measurements, including implementation of very long-baseline interferometry (VLBI). This cooperation is realized on the basis of the agreement on collaboration of the Russian Federal Space Agency and ESA in the framework of the ‘Phobos-Grunt’ and ‘ExoMars’ projects.
Mars Express will continue to encounter Phobos until the end of March, when the moon will pass out of range. During the remaining flybys, HRSC and other instruments will continue to collect data.
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Mars Express blog
Phobos Mission – The International project PHOBOS was devoted to the investigations of Mars and its satellites. Two interplanetary probes were launched in 1988, one of them had reached the Phobos and carried out some experiments before it was lost. The Planetary Society: Phobos – a look at Phobos, missions to the moon, and maps of it. |
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A self-conscious Moon might ask, "Does my far side look big?" To which lunar scientists would have to reply in the affirmative. They have long known there is a bulge on the Moon’s far side, a thick region of the lunar crust which underlies the farside highlands. But why that bulge is there has been a mystery, and the fact that the far side always faces away from Earth hasn’t helped. Now, a group of international scientists have found that perhaps the tidal processes of Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa, can provide a clue.
Re: Ben Reytblatyes, a delta v of less than 1km/s is well within range of commercially available tether materials such as spectra and zylon fiber.In fact, even with some redundancy and a healthy safety factor current materials allow for capture velocities of up to 4km/s without excessive tether mass ratios.See the publications at http://www.tethers.com for more info.It is a mystery to me why everybody ignores space tethers (except in the currently impractical form of a space elevator). A tether infrastructure would allow for propellantless travel from LEO to the surface of the moon and back (assuming that the mass flow is balanced).
wow – fascinating alright - feels like being on an orbiting spaceship and viewing the surface of the moon from a not too distant vantage point! far out 🙂