The last two months of last 2011 were marked by unpleasant events around the Phobos-Grunt automatic interplanetary station (AMS). The up-and-coming spacecraft fell victim to a booster malfunction, leaving it in and out of low-Earth orbit. On January 15, 2012, the failed "expedition" ended - the device burned out in the atmosphere. The first versions of the reasons for the failure began to appear almost immediately after the device did not enter the calculated orbit. Moreover, not all hypotheses regarding the contingency situation were proposed by competent persons. One way or another, according to the results of the analysis of the information collected during the launch and in the following days, it was found that the main culprit of the accident was electronics, unsuitable for action in space.
It should be noted that failures followed the Phobos-Grunt project from the very beginning. The idea to send an automatic station to a satellite of Mars in order for it to collect information and deliver soil samples to Earth appeared back in 1996. At that time, the launch of a rocket with an apparatus was planned for 2004. However, by the middle of the 2000s, the financial and time aspects of the program were seriously revised. Therefore, the launch of the AMS "Phobos-Grunt" was first postponed to 2009, and then to 2011. The further fate of this station is known to everyone.
As it became known, in the coming years a new project may be launched, the goals of which will fully coincide with the tasks of Phobos-Grunt. But this is not an easy and slow business. Therefore, the updated station, equipped with new equipment, will go to the Red Planet no earlier than 2020. According to the director general of the NPO named after Lavochkin V. Khartova, such terms are caused by several factors at once. This includes funding, space industry opportunities, and current plans. In particular, now the joint project "Exomars", which is being carried out jointly with the European Space Agency, is of higher priority. The latter, according to Khartov, will be useful for a new program for the study of Phobos: a flight to Mars requires several new solutions and technologies, and the Exomars project is quite capable of becoming their "progenitor."
Despite the failure with the Phobos-Grunt program, Roskosmos and related organizations continue to work and make certain successes in their field. Moreover, these achievements are being recognized abroad. So, in May 2012, JSC Russian Space Systems received a very interesting letter signed by the director of the Royal Institute of Navigation in London. In this letter, RKS was notified that the Institute's Council had decided to award the 2012 Duke of Edinburgh Technical Achievement Award to the team of employees working on the GLONASS project. RCS engineers received an honorary prize "for the complete deployment of the system in December 2011 and provision of navigation and time services." On July 11, an award ceremony took place.
As you can see, failures with electronics or criminal actions of some officials to "master" funds, in general, do not have a fatal effect on the work of the space industry. Among others, several automatic interplanetary stations are being actively developed at once, which will go to their targets in the coming years. The first of these projects is the Venus Exploration Probe, also known as the European Venus Explorer. Russia's participation in this program consists of the provision of a launch vehicle and related equipment. In November 2013, the Venusian probe will be launched into Earth's orbit using the Soyuz-FG rocket and the Fregat upper stage. The launch will take place at the Kourou Cosmodrome in French Guiana. The mission of the Venus Research Probe is to study Venus's atmosphere, composition, dynamics, etc.
A little later - in 2015 - another spacecraft, this time exclusively Russian, will go to its target. With the help of the Soyuz-2 carrier rocket, the Intergeliozond spacecraft will be sent into the Earth's orbit. Then he will fly to Venus, where, with the help of gravitational maneuvers, he will pick up a speed sufficient to fly to the Sun. The automatic station will be equipped with a set of equipment necessary for the required measurements of various parameters of the luminary. These are X-ray telescopes, spectrographs, magnetographs, analyzers and particle detectors, spectrometers, etc. With the help of the Interheliozond station, the scientists of the Russian Academy of Sciences hope to collect information about the Sun, the solar wind, the dynamics of matter inside the star, and much more. During the research, the device will be in an orbit with a diameter of about 40 solar radii. To ensure work in such difficult conditions, Russian scientists are currently developing a new heat shield.
In the same year as Intergeliozond, the station of the Luna-Glob project will make its flight to the Moon. The first launch of the apparatus created under this program at NPO im. Lavochkin, was planned for early 2012, but due to the incident with the AMS "Phobos-Grunt" it was postponed for three years. During the Luna-Glob program, at least two spacecraft launches will be carried out. First, in 2015, an orbital probe carrying measuring, photo and video equipment will be sent to the natural satellite of the Earth. Its purpose will be to survey the lunar surface and some studies of the moon that can be done without descending on it. A little later - in 2016 - the Zenit-3 launch vehicle will send a second probe into space. This "participant" of the project will not be an orbital, but a descent. It is the Luna-Glob lander that will collect basic information and send it to Earth. In general, the tasks of the Luna-Glob project are reminiscent of what Soviet automatic stations were doing in the sixties and seventies. Since that time, technology has gone far ahead and it has become possible to resume research on the satellite of our home planet. In the future, based on the results of the operation of the Luna-Glob descent probe, it is possible to send other AMS with a different composition of equipment and other tasks. The information collected by the Luna-Glob spacecraft will be useful in preparing the planned manned flights to the Moon.
Obviously, the Luna-Glob orbiter will collect information not only to ensure the "landing" of its descending fellow. In 2017, Russia and India are planning to jointly launch two more lunar vehicles. An Indian-made GSLV-2 booster rocket will be launched from the Sriharikot cosmodrome, on board which will be the Russian Luna-Resource station and the Indian Chandrayan-2 station. On approaching the Moon, the stations will disperse: the Russian one will land, and the Indian one will remain in orbit. It is known that the Luna-Resurs descent vehicle will have a high degree of unification with the Luna-Glob descent station. The Russian station "Luna-Resource" will engage in contact and remote sensing of the polar regions of the Moon. In particular, the object of study will be the lunar soil, the structure of the satellite and its interaction with the Earth. The Indian module "Chandrayan-2" located in orbit, in turn, will collect the information, for which it is necessary to be at a certain distance from the surface: the state and features of the plasma and dusty exosphere, the effect of solar radiation on the Moon, etc.
At about the same time, Russia will again begin independent studies of Venus. The Venera-D probe is scheduled to be launched in 2016-17. The twelve-ton spacecraft will consist of three parts and will be launched into space using a Proton or Angara launch vehicle. The basis of the research complex: an orbital automatic station. Its task is to be in orbit and measure various parameters of the Venusian atmosphere. Simultaneously with the work in orbit, the main module will send probes to the planet. The first of them will descend to an altitude of about 55-60 kilometers from the surface of the planet, and the second will operate under a layer of clouds, at heights of 45-50 km. The durability of both probes should be enough for eight to ten days of operation, after which the aggressive atmosphere will disable them. For the available time, the probes will collect information about the composition of the atmosphere in its various layers, the dynamics of the movement of flows, etc. It is also planned to include a lander in the research complex. Due to the high pressure at the planet's surface, its protection is only enough for two to three hours of work and for a descent of 30-60 minutes. Now, in the early stages of the development of research probes, it is noted that in the case of using a more powerful launch vehicle, it is possible to expand the composition of the complex. First of all, another drifting atmospheric automatic station can be added. In addition, the persons responsible for the development of the equipment argue that in the very near future it is possible to create such systems of protection from the environment, with the help of which the drifting probes can be at altitudes of about 50 kilometers for a month.
The Venera-D orbital module will operate until about the early twenties. Later, it will be replaced by a new automatic station. The Venera-Globe project is a further development of Venera-D. Unlike the earlier station, the Venera-Glob orbital module is planned to be equipped with 4-6 descent vehicles capable of operating in the atmosphere and on the surface. The Venera-Globe program dates back to the middle of the 2000s, when RAS scientists worked on the issue of the features of the long-lived station. Based on the results of a mass of research, it was concluded that the creation of a lander for long-term operation on the surface of Venus is still possible. However, in the current state of materials science and industry, such an apparatus would be extremely expensive. In addition, it will take a lot of effort to create efficient cooling systems, or to develop electronics adapted to such harsh conditions as those hidden under the Venusian atmosphere. The RAS Section on the Solar System hopes to complete all the necessary research in the years remaining before the planned launch and make a long-term station, which scientists around the world have dreamed of for so long. It is noted that the Venera-Glob program may well be completed in cooperation with the Europeans. The fact is that upon completion of the work of the Euopean Venus Explorer station, ESA plans to commission the AMC EVE-2. Cooperation between the Russian Academy of Sciences and the European Space Agency may lead to the fact that instead of two automatic stations, only one will fly to Venus, but it has a much greater scientific potential than the original projects of independent development.
The above projects of automatic interplanetary stations have already left the stage of proposals and are the subject of design work. Almost all of them, with the exception of Venus-Globe, are also part of the Federal Space Program 2006-2015. When looking at the pace of proposing proposals, developing projects, launches and plans for the future, one cannot help thinking about the expediency of adopting the Federal Program. In any case, even the mere reconstruction of the grouping of the GLONASS system clearly hints at a gradual restoration of the capacity of the domestic space industry. In the future, this will give a good rate of development to various directions, including automatic interplanetary stations. However, not everything is smooth here yet. Remembering Phobos-Grunt, it is worth noting the need to control each stage of development, assembly and operation. Space technology has one very unpleasant feature: even a small saving on the quality of any component can lead to disproportionate losses. It is for this reason that the notorious "Phobos-Grunt" was lost. I really don't want the next automatic stations not to fly to other planets, but to fall on their own.
