Why is it that we never hear much about satellites or space probes that disappear? If it is a secret launch and the satellite disappears, we may never hear about it. Some of these disappearances have become suspect. There are those that believe that some alien force has been at work here and there are others that feel that maybe some other nation has the technology to knock these things off course. There is no doubt that some disappearances have seemed very strange.

A space probe was launched in 1989 by Russia to examine one of the moons of Mars. The moon was Phobos and the finding was controversial The probe had determined that the moon Phobos was hollow. Those of you that keep up with these kind of things probably know that our own moon is considered to be hollow. This was determined when we slammed a satellite into it and it vibrated for over an hour like a bell. Not only did the Russian satellite determine that Phobos was hollow, but even more important, it determined that the moon was artificial. Many people state that our own moon may also be artificial and was placed in orbit to allow for the creation of tides and such, thus fostering life on our planet. Phobos 2 orbited Mars and sent back 38 images that showed a resolution down to 40 meters. The probe was supposed to approach within 50 meters of Phobos and then release 2 landers. As the probe approached Phobos, communication was lost leading some to say that aliens had prevented the final phase of the mission. The Russians stated that the on-board computer must have failed. Some of the last photos showed a mysterious shadow that many thought was from a UFO.

Mars Orbiter
Graphic Source: NASA

In 1993 the United States lost contact with a probe that was sent to Mars. The probe was named Mars Observer and it was only a couple of days before it was scheduled to reach its destination. It had been launched in 1992 and everything seemed to go well. Some of the instruments on board were equipped to measure gravity and the atmosphere of Mars. Along with that and other instruments were narrow angle and wide angle telescopic cameras. The probe had to be cleaned again before launch, because it was found to be contaminated with paint chips and metal filings, but this was taken care of. NASA couldn't understand why they couldn't contact the probe. Since the probe had been programmed with an automation orbit insertion program, NASA didn't know if the probe had achieved or missed orbit? In 1994 an independent investigation was conducted by the Naval Research Laboratory. Their findings were that probably fuel had leaked out of a tank and got past the valves, causing fuel and an oxidizer to combine before reaching the combustion chamber. They felt that this would have caused the probe to spin very fast, causing the transmitter to fail and preventing the automatic programming from taking over. This was guesswork however. The panel stated, "No one will probably ever know exactly what happened to the spacecraft."

In January of 2005, the Russian newspaper Kommersant announced that the Russian spy satellite named the Cobalt could no longer be found. The satellite was also known as Cosmos 2410 and had an advanced design. It had been in orbit for 107 days. Some say that the satellite had been guided back to Earth by the Russians and they were keeping this fact secret for some unknown reason. They claim that the flight control system was giving the Russians problems and had already been fixed once and when the problem reappeared the Russians decided to land the satellite. The story continued however and it was said that when the Russians went to the landing area, there was no satellite there.

US Space Probe Contour
Photo Source: NASA

Sometimes a lost satellite is found. In 2002 NASA found its lost Contour spacecraft. The probe had been launched with the purpose of studying comets, but disappeared. The sky was searched with different high power telescopes and to the amazement of all, the spacecraft was found. Where did it go? It seems that somehow it went into orbit around the sun, but wait, it turned out that what was found was not the probe, but three different objects along the course set for the probe, leading some to feel that the probe had been destroyed.

British Space Probe Beagle-2
Author: Geni
Photo Source: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Genericand 1.0 Generic license.

In 2003 radio astronomers were alerted to start looking for the Beagle-2. The Beagle-2 was a space probe that was supposed to land on Mars Christmas morning, of that year. The probe was one of a few built by the British. The orbiting American spacecraft Odyssey attempted to contact the British probe, but could not. Even today, no one knows if the Beagle-2 ever landed on Mars. Where did it go, why can't we find wreckage if it crashed, if it didn't crash and lost its ability to communicate, why can't we find it on the surface? These are all good questions and have yet to be answered.

The Japanese space probe named Akatsuki had a very unique problem. The planned mission was for it to orbit Venus, as a matter of fact its original name was the Venus Climate Orbiter or VCO. It was also called Planet-C, which in itself is a little strange. The idea was to have it explore the surface of Venus from orbit. The unique situation was that it didn't insert itself into the correct orbit, because the rocket burn was far too short, but the probe is fine and in 2016 it will be in place for another try. Japan has had quite a few problems with space probes.