Countdown for Phobos-Grunt

Phobos-Grunt story is a curious one. This spacecraft was supposed to investigate Phobos (a Mars satellite). The project was conceived in 1999 but its launch was not done until last year (8th November). However, an unknown fail in the launch system made it impossible to the Phobos-Grunt to take its route (possibly due to some radar interference in USA spaceflight). Since then, the Phobo-Grunt has stayed orbiting.

Phobos moon

Predictions said the Phobos-Grunt would reentry the Earth somewhere between November and December, but the spacecraft made it to continue in the Earth's orbit. Until now.

Phobos-Grunt on its launch

There are some investigations on this orbit, currently being monitored, to capture this spacecraft. The Phobos-Grunt will probably fall today, as some agencies have been telling at their Internet sites.

Phobos-Grunt structural scheme

You can follow its current way approaching Earth's surface in this Twitter account: @PhG_Reentry

UPDATE: Follow the current status on this Live Map.

UPDATE 2: Decay Predictions, Reentry Ground Tracks and Current State.

UPDATE 3: Decay Predictions, Reentry Ground Tracks and Current State (updated data):

Source	Date of Prediction (UTC)	Predicted decay date (UTC)	View Related Ground Tracks (*Note)
USSTRATCOM	January 14 20:30	January 15, 17:20 (±2h)	View Reentry Track
Russian Federal Space Agency	January 15 08:00	January 15, 19:10 (±2.5h)	View Reentry Track
Aerospace Corporation	January 15 06:25	January 15, 19:21 (±3h)	View Reentry Track
Calsky.com	January 15 09:21	January 15, 20:09 (±2.2h)	View Reentry Track
Ted Molczan	January 15 09:21	January 15, 20:07 (±2.5h) January 15, 16:37 (±2.5h)	View Reentry Track View Reentry Track
Harro Zimmer	January 15 12:44	January 15, 18:02 (±24min)	View Reentry Track
Paul Salanitri	January 15 13:34	January 15, 17:30 (±3h)	View Reentry Track
Abdolreza Lavari	January 14 20:15	January 15, 17:30 (±1.5h)	View Reentry Track

TABLE I - DECAY PREDICTIONS

*Note. The current uncertainty of the re-enter time is still too large to identify the geographical region of reenter, however, it is already possible to estimate the bands around the planet that may be involved according to the available predictions. As the re-enter time approaches these bands may shift; click on the last column of the previous table to see them.

Predicted #PhobosGrunt re-entry is around 17:30 UTC (in 1.5 hours, or one orbit) any keen observers around Greece for the 16:45+ UTC pass? Answers to @PhG_Reentry

UPDATE 4: New TLE data shows still on track, perhaps #PhobosGrunt re-entry may be a little earlier, stand-by.

UPDATE 5 (17:30 UTC):

2012 Jan 15, 17:23 ± 24 min	Issued 2012 Jan 15, 15:30	Spacetrack (TIP)
2012 Jan 15, 18:12 ± 22 min	Issued 2012 Jan 15, 16:30	Roscosmos - approximate epoch
2012 Jan 15, 17:52 ± 19 min	Issued 2012 Jan 15, 16:36	Aerospace CORDS

UPDATE 6: Phobos-Grunt should be visible from the South part of Spain over the next 10 minutes.

UPDATE 7: Phobos-Grunt is supposed to have reached ground already, some Russian agencies say.

Via Russian Space Web
Via Zarya

This article in Spanish