Adam Lakers Carolla is an American radio personality, comedian, actor and podcaster. He hosts The Adam Carolla Show, a talk show distributed as a podcast which set the record as the "most downloaded podcast" as judged by Guinness World Records in 2011.
Phobos is the innermost and larger of the two natural satellites of Mars, the other being Deimos. The two moons were discovered in 1877 by American astronomer Asaph Hall. It is named after Phobos, the Greek god of fear and panic, who is the son of Ares (Mars) and twin brother of Deimos.
The Planetary Society is an American internationally-active non-governmental nonprofit organization. It is involved in research, public outreach, and political space advocacy for engineering projects related to astronomy, planetary science, and space exploration. It was founded in 1980 by Carl Sagan, Bruce Murray, and Louis Friedman, and has about 60,000 members from more than 100 countries around the world.
The planet Mars has been explored remotely by spacecraft. Probes sent from Earth, beginning in the late 20th century, have yielded a large increase in knowledge about the Martian system, focused primarily on understanding its geology and habitability potential. Engineering interplanetary journeys is complicated and the exploration of Mars has experienced a high failure rate, especially the early attempts. Roughly sixty percent of all spacecraft destined for Mars failed before completing their missions and some failed before their observations could begin. Some missions have met with unexpected success, such as the twin Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity which operated for years beyond their specification.
Seth Shostak is an American astronomer and author, and is currently the senior astronomer for the SETI Institute.
Fobos-Grunt or Phobos-Grunt was an attempted Russian sample return mission to Phobos, one of the moons of Mars. Fobos-Grunt also carried the Chinese Mars orbiter Yinghuo-1 and the tiny Living Interplanetary Flight Experiment funded by the Planetary Society.
The two moons of Mars are Phobos and Deimos. They are irregular in shape. Both were discovered by American astronomer Asaph Hall in August 1877 and are named after the Greek mythological twin characters Phobos and Deimos who accompanied their father Ares into battle. Ares, god of war, was known to the Romans as Mars.
Universe Today (U.T.) is a popular North American-based non-commercial space and astronomy news website. The domain was registered on December 30, 1998, and the website went live in March 1999, founded by Canadian Fraser Cain. The Universe Today assumed its current form on July 24, 2003, featuring astronomy news and space-related issues.
Andrew Zaltzman is a British comedian and author who largely deals in political and sport-related material.
A Mars sample-return (MSR) mission is a proposed mission to collect rock and dust samples on Mars and return them to Earth. Such a mission would allow more extensive analysis than that allowed by onboard sensors.
Pamela L. Gay is an American astronomer, educator, podcaster, and writer, best known for her work in astronomical podcasting and citizen science astronomy projects. She is a senior education and communication specialist and senior scientist for the Planetary Science Institute. Her research interests include analysis of astronomy data, as well as examination of the impact of citizen science initiatives. Gay has also appeared as herself in various television documentary series.
Astronomy Cast is an educational nonprofit podcast discussing various topics in the field of astronomy. The specific subject matter of each episode shifts from week to week, ranging from planets and stars to cosmology and mythbusting. Premiering on September 10, 2006, the weekly show is co-hosted by Fraser Cain and Dr. Pamela L. Gay. Fraser Cain is the publisher of the space and astronomy news site Universe Today and has a YouTube channel with over 200,000 subscribers. The other host, Dr. Pamela L. Gay, is a Senior Education and Communication Specialist and Senior Scientist for the Planetary Science Institute and the director of CosmoQuest. Each show usually has a length of approximately 30 minutes, and all shows, past and present, are accessible for download through the Astronomy Cast archive, as well as in podcast format.
The Living Interplanetary Flight Experiment was an interplanetary mission developed by the Planetary Society. It consisted of sending selected microorganisms on a three-year interplanetary round-trip in a small capsule aboard the Russian Fobos-Grunt spacecraft in 2011, which was a failed sample-return mission to the Martian moon Phobos. The Fobos-Grunt mission failed to leave Earth orbit and was destroyed.
The year 2011 saw a number of significant events in spaceflight, including the retirement of NASA's Space Shuttle after its final flight in July 2011, and the launch of China's first space station module, Tiangong-1, in September. A total of 84 orbital launches were conducted over the course of the year, of which 78 were successful. Russia, China and the United States conducted the majority of the year's orbital launches, with 35, 19 and 18 launches respectively; 2011 marked the first year that China conducted more successful launches than the United States. Seven crewed missions were launched into orbit during 2011, carrying a total of 28 astronauts to the International Space Station. Additionally, the Zenit-3F and Long March 2F/G carrier rockets made their maiden flights in 2011, while the Delta II Heavy made its last.
Yinghuo-1 was a Chinese Mars-exploration space probe, intended to be the first Chinese planetary space probe and the first Chinese spacecraft to orbit Mars. It was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, on 8 November 2011, along with the Russian Fobos-Grunt sample return spacecraft, which was intended to visit Mars' moon Phobos. The 115-kg (250-lb) Yinghuo-1 probe was intended by the CNSA to orbit Mars for about two years, studying the planet's surface, atmosphere, ionosphere and magnetic field. Shortly after launch, Fobos-Grunt was expected to perform two burns to depart Earth orbit bound for Mars. However, these burns did not take place, leaving both probes stranded in orbit. On 17 November 2011, CNSA reported that Yinghuo-1 had been declared lost. After a period of orbital decay, Yinghuo-1 and Fobos-Grunt underwent destructive re-entry on 15 January 2012, finally disintegrating over the Pacific Ocean.
Vladimir Aleksandrovich Popovkin was a Russian statesman and military figure. He was a commander of the Russian Space Forces, then First Deputy Defense Minister of Russia, then Director of the Russian Federal Space Agency. He had the military rank of General of the Army and the federal state civilian service rank of 1st class Active State Councillor of the Russian Federation.
Alexander Valentinovich Zakharov is a Soviet and Russian chief scientist and astronomer serving at the Russian Space Research Institute (IKI).
Mars-Grunt, also known as Expedition-M, is a robotic spacecraft sample return mission proposed to be sent to Mars in mid-2020s. It was proposed to the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) by the Russian Space Research Institute.
