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Toxic Russian spaceship fears dismissed

2011116 phobos

The Russian Phobos-Grunt spacecraft was meant to fly to the Martian moon Phobos (Source: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona)

Phobos fears Concerns about a crippled Russian spaceship crashing back to Earth with a load of toxic fuel aboard have been played down by an Australian engineer.

Mission controllers lost contact with the 165-million dollar Phobos Grunt spacecraft last week and authorities say it is likely to crash back to Earth in January.

After a flawless launch on a Zenith 2-SB rocket from the Baiknour Cosmodrome in the central Asian republic of Kazakhstan, the spacecraft successfully reached an initial orbit.

However the probe then suddenly went silent.

Two scheduled rocket burns which should have sent the probe on its course to Mars failed to eventuate, leaving the probe loaded with 12 tonnes of unused highly toxic hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide fuel in a rapidly decaying orbit.

"Unlike kerosene and most other rocket propellants which degrade over time, hydrazine is easily storable in space. That's why it's traditionally used in geostationary satellites which last in orbit for 15 years no problem," says aerospace engineer Ian Bryce from the Australian Space Research Institute.

"Hydrazine consists of nitrogen, hydrogen and carbon with double bonds on the nitrogen making it very toxic. The oxidizer nitrogen tetroxide is nitrogen and oxygen again with double bonds on the nitrogen making it toxic."

Scientists aren't sure if it's still liquid or whether the cold conditions of space have turned it into a sold block of toxic ice.

Numerous press reports have expressed fears the spacecraft's fuel represents a dangerous toxic threat to Earth but Bryce says the hydrazine will not survive re-entry.

"The heat of re-entry and ultraviolet radiation from the Sun in the upper atmosphere should be enough to burn up the fuel regardless of what state it's in," says Bryce.

"Because it's so volatile, it will disperse fairly quickly."

Not lost in space yet

Russian Space Agency chief Vladimir Popovkin, says repeated attempts to contact the spacecraft, obtain telemetry and activate its command systems have failed.

Popovkin denies that the Phobos-Grunt probe is considered lost, saying scientists have until December to re-establish contact, re-programme the probe and send it on its planned trajectory to Mars.

"The probe is going to be in orbit until January, but in the first days of December the window will close to re-programme it," says Popovkin.

According to Popovkin, if mission controllers can't reprogram the spacecraft in time, the 14.6 tonne probe will start to lose altitude, re-entering the Earth's atmosphere in January.

However Popovkin insists the probe would burn up in the atmosphere and would not pose a danger to people on the ground.


The flight was designed to collect samples from the Martian moon Phobos and return them to Earth in 2014, so has a vehicle that is designed to survive re-entry.

The probe was to herald the return of Moscow to scientific interplanetary research after a gap of 15 years and was also carrying the Chinese Yinghuo-1 satellite which was to enter orbit around Mars.

The word 'grunt' means 'soil' in Russian and the word 'phobos' means 'fear' in Greek.

Tags: planets-and-asteroids, spacecraft