Russia to hold US accountable for loss of Phobos Ground space probe (posted in Russia > Economics)
Vladimir Popovkin, the head of Russia's Federal Space Agency, named the main versions, which became the reasons for the failure of the nation's Phobos Ground Mars exploration project. US officials stated that the US government was in no way connected with the breakdown of the spacecraft. However, the chairman of Roscosmos still believes that the Russian spacecraft could come out of order because of a US radar. At the same time, Popovkin does not remove responsibility from designers, engineers and other specialists, who were working on the creation and the launch of the spacecraft.
"The committee considers this version (the radar impact) as one of the reasons. The main ones are the mistakes that could be made during the making and the tests of the probe," Popovkin said Thursday in an interview with Vesti FM.
Russia lost 1.2 billion rubles in the failed project. The works within the framework of the project cost nearly 4 billion rubles more.
"There is a version saying that they (the Americans) had a powerful radar working. The radiation could cause a malfunction for the equipment of the spacecraft," Popovkin said. According to the official, if this information is confirmed at least partially, Russia will ask NASA specialists to take part in the investigation of the reasons of the breakdown.
http://english.pravda.ru/russia/economics/19-01-2012/120281-phobos_ground-0/
= new reply since forum marked as read
