Help Shape the Future of Space Exploration

Join The Planetary Society Now Join Now!

Join our eNewsletter for updates & action alerts

   Please leave this field empty
Blogs

See other posts from November 2011

Headshot of Emily Lakdawalla

Phobos-Grunt and Yinghuo-1 poised for liftoff

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla

2011/11/08 08:00 CST

Topics:

Russia's Phobos-Grunt sample return spacecraft, carrying the Planetary Society's Phobos LIFE experiment, plus China's Yinghuo-1 Mars minisatellite, are poised for launch at Baikonur! The launch window opens in less than six hours, at 20:16 UTC. Here's some Roscosmos photos I found on Spaceflightnow's website and added to my Flickr set of Phobos-Grunt launch preparations:

Zenit risingPhobos-Grunt and Yinghuo-1 on the launch pad

You can see them rolling out and raising the rocket in this video from Roscosmos TV:

Information on the post-launch timeline is not very easy to come by. I am sure that Anatoly Zak will be posting updates as he gets them through his Twitter feed or his website. His latest tweet, just ten minutes ago, says cleared for fueling! And there are many European Space Agency ground stations that will be tracking Phobos-Grunt after launch; so I'll be watching the ESAOperations Twitter feed as well. They remarked yesterday that they would start tracking at 01:40 UT. Spaceflightnow promises live streaming video of the launch. I will Tweet whatever news I get!

Comments:

Leave a Comment:

You must be logged in to submit a comment. Log in now.
Facebook Twitter Email RSS AddThis

Blog Search

JOIN THE
PLANETARY SOCIETY

Our Curiosity Knows No Bounds!

Become a member of The Planetary Society and together we will create the future of space exploration.

Join Us

The Planetary Report

The Summer Solstice issue is out!

Read it Now

Space in Images

Pretty pictures and awe-inspiring science.

See More

Connect With Us

Facebook! Twitter! Google+ and more…
Continue the conversation with our online community!