Satellite News

Efforts to rescue Russia’s Fobos-Grunt probe continued on 11 November, again without any results so far. “Overnight, several attempts were made to obtain telemetric information from the probe. They all ended with zero result,” Interfax quoted a source in the Russian space sector as saying.
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Efforts to rescue the Fobos-Grunt mission have so far turned out to be unsuccessful. Meanwhile, the spacecraft’s status is unknown.
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Fobos-Grunt, Russia’s robotic mission to the Mars moon Phobos, is stuck in a low-Earth orbit after its successful launch. The spacecraft was supposed to use its own engine to reach the designated trajectory to Mars, but failed to do so. Hopes for a timely recovery exist in theory but may be rather small.
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DirecTV said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that its DirecTV 10 satellite recently experienced problems with its propulsion system.

Anomalies in the operation of the solid-state mass memory system on board Mars Express have caused science observations to be temporarily halted. A technical work-around is being investigated that will enable the resumption of a number of observations and should evolve into a long-term solution.

Malaysia’s RazakSAT Earth observation satellite, launched in July 2009, developed a malfunction after one year in orbit that rendered it de facto useless. Reportedly, the spacecraft is unable to correctly point its camera at targeted regions.

Russia’s chief prosecutor has blamed a recent spate of failures – the loss of an Ekspress AM-4 telecommunications satellite and Progress M-12M cargo vessel earlier this year – on negligence by space industry enterprises’ employees.

Today at approximately 1036 UTC Telesat’s Anik F2 satellite experienced a technical anomaly that resulted in loss of satellite services to its customers.