why the fark does australia let the russians have a tracking station there?

Russian-Austrian satellite interstellar phone sex?

BiffDangler: why the fark does australia let the russians have a tracking station there?

Well, initially we backed the US in the space race (helping out tracking the moon landing out of Parkes), but it turned out we made a miscalculation and the Russians were the long term winners. So (being a nation populated entirely by criminals) we instantly switched sides.

It is the same reason we are now housing 2000 Морская пехота in Perth, to counterbalance the marines in Darwin and keep everyone happy.

It's hard getting to mars. All together, Russian, American, European and Japanese attempts are running 50/50. This is the first one to get stranded in LEO in a long time though.

BiffDangler: why the fark does australia let the russians have a tracking station there?

FTFA: "On Tuesday, 22 November at 20:25 UT, ESA's tracking station at Perth, Australia, established contact with Russia's Phobos-Grunt spacecraft."

ESA is the European Space Agency. It's ESA's tracking station, not Russia's.

Anyway, Australia is a great location for receiving signals in the southern hemisphere. It's no surprise that they have tracking stations there, and I wouldn't be surprised if many space-capable nations wanted to put a station there.

What's the harm?

/hopes that Phobos-Grunt isn't dead, but isn't holding out too much hope
//the university I'm doing my grad work at has an instrument on board, so they're all a bit excited

BiffDangler: why the fark does australia let the russians have a tracking station there?

Somethin something line of sight vodak

"Mars probe, my ass"



/note the careful placement of the comma

What idiots. There is a simple explanation for what's happening.

Aliens intercepted the craft, rigged it with some sort of something or other -intended to do something or other-, placed it strategically, and re-enabled its communications systems.

It's all coming together now!

*hides*

V'Ger needs the informantion, Comrade!

heypete: the university I'm doing my grad work at has an instrument on board, so they're all a bit excited

Might want to quell that excitement. It's not going to Mars. It's going to deorbit in about a month. Getting some faint signal from it is a long way from sending it commands to leave low earth orbit. besides the window is probably long closed to get it to Phobos. It's just nuke powered space junk now.

Send it to a nearby asteroid. It useta-could go to mars.

Baron Harkonnen: itsfullofstars: It's hard getting to mars. All together, Russian, American, European and Japanese attempts are running 50/50.

I've heard that statistic before, and while it's technically accurate, guess which space agency is primarily responsible for the curve being that low. Comrade Tovarish.

FTFY


/pet peeve

itsfullofstars: Might want to quell that excitement. It's not going to Mars. It's going to deorbit in about a month. Getting some faint signal from it is a long way from sending it commands to leave low earth orbit. besides the window is probably long closed to get it to Phobos. It's just nuke powered space junk now.

Indeed. There was some light-hearted joking with the professors about why they chose to send the instrument on a Russian craft, when the Russians are evidently cursed when it comes to launching stuff to Mars.

At least I thought it was light-hearted joking. They'll probably fail me.

nonzero: Well, initially we backed the US in the space race (helping out tracking the moon landing out of Parkes), but it turned out we made a miscalculation and the Russians were the long term winners. So (being a nation populated entirely by criminals) we instantly switched sides.

It is the same reason we are now housing 2000 Морская пехота in Perth, to counterbalance the marines in Darwin and keep everyone happy.

That is the last straw. We're sending Kurt Russell with an eye patch.

No problem. We'll just send the shuttle to retrieve...oh wait...Obama...shuttle program...no wonder the Russians hate that guy.

I hope they get control. That's a lot of Hydrazine Hurt waiting to land on someone....

What a phobos-grunt might look like

I love that the probe is called "phobos-grunt"

Because "phobos cop a squat" would have been too on the nose?

Fun Movie.

The footage from the Moon Landing came from Australia.