Dramatic Scene as Cruise Ship Runs Aground in Italy
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Video
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Russia's failed Phobos-Grunt space probe heads to Earth
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Greece struggles to agree on 'haircut' ...[ 2634 ]
Greek default worries rise as bond swap talks are 'paused'
Crucial negotiations between the Greek government and its private creditors on a bond swap deal needed to avoid default appeared close to collapse on Friday, with representatives of private bondholders saying they had been "paused for reflection."
Greece struggles to agree details of 50pc voluntary 'haircut' on the country's sovereign bonds with bondholders. Photo: Alamy /AP
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The bond swap aims to reduce Greece's debt by €100bn and is a key part of a second, €130bn international bailout.
Without it, the country could suffer a catastrophic bankruptcy that would send shockwaves through the global economy. The bailout tops a first, €110bn rescue agreed in May 2010, when the country borrowing costs soared to untenable heights.
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Prime Minister Lucas Papademos and Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos met on Thursday and Friday with Charles Dallara and Jean Lemierre of the Institute of International Finance (IIF), a global banking body representing private bondholders to discuss the deal. Finance ministry officials from the eurozone also met in Brussels Thursday night on the issue.
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The IIF said in a statement: "Unfortunately, despite the efforts of Greece's leadership, the proposal put forward ... which involves an unprecedented 50pc nominal reduction of Greece's sovereign bonds in private investors' hands and up to €100 billion of debt forgiveness - has not produced a constructive consolidated response by all parties, consistent with a voluntary exchange of Greek sovereign debt.
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"Under the circumstances, discussions with Greece and the official sector are paused for reflection on the benefits of a voluntary approach."
Cruise ship runs aground off Italy...[ 2633 ]
Officials: 3 killed after cruise ship runs aground off Italy
January 14, 2012 -- Updated 1141 GMT (1941 HKT)
Costa says the emergency operation continues and is helping passengers and crew return home.-
Rome (CNN) -- At least three people were killed when a cruise ship ran aground near the Italian island of Giglio on Friday night, the local civil protection agency said Saturday.
The Costa Concordia, owned by Genoa-based Costa Cruises, ran aground on a sand bank off the island, located off of Italy's western coast, ANSA reported. The incident occurred during dinnertime, witness Luciano Castro told ANSA.
The ship was carrying about 3,200 passengers and 1,000 crew members at the time, according to the cruise line's blog.
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Initial reports suggested as many as six people had been killed, but it was unclear why the number dropped. An additional 14 people were injured, Adm. Ilarione Dell'Anna, head of coastal authorities for the port city of Livorno, told CNN.
Italy cruise ship evacuated -
The civil protection agency in the town of Grosseto, the provincial capital, said the emergency operation was still ongoing and parts of the ship remained underwater, so the toll could rise.
The authorities believe they have now accounted for everyone on board but do not yet have the definitive list of name.
The coast guard said three helicopters were used to rescue some passengers from the ship, which pictures show leaning heavily to one side.
Evacuation efforts started promptly but were made "extremely difficult" by the position of the ship, according to a statement on Costa's website. Some passengers fell into the chilly waters during the rescue, Italy's ANSA news agency reported.
Dell'Anna said an investigation is under way.
"There has probably been a technical blackout," he said. "The ship was dangerously near the coast. We worked all night in a state of maximum emergency.
"Fortunately the sea conditions have helped us, otherwise -- given the high number of people to rescue, 4,231 -- we could have had a completely different scenario: a real tragedy."
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Passengers said the lights went out and then it became clear the ship had hit something.
Panic spread as people scrambled to find lifeboats in the dark as the ship quickly leaned to one side. Access to some lifeboats was hampered by the ship's tilt into the water, adding to the confusion.
Many of those rescued in the early hours were taken to small churches and other buildings around the island for shelter.
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One of the victims was a 65-year-old woman who died of a heart attack, according to authorities.
Costa said it was focusing on the final stages of the emergency operation and helping passengers and crew return home.
"It is a tragedy that deeply affects our company. Our first thoughts go to the victims and we would like to express our condolences and our closeness to their families and friends," Costa said on its website.
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The Concordia, built in 2006, was on a Mediterranean cruise from Rome with stops in Savona, Marseille, Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca, Cagliari and Palermo, according to the cruise line. It was unclear how far into the cruise the grounding occurred.
Most of the passengers on board were Italian, as well as some French and German citizens. CNN affiliate America Noticias, in Peru, said a group of 32 Peruvians were also onboard.
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Another Costa ship was involved in a deadly 2010 accident when the Costa Europa crashed into a pier in Egypt's Sharm el-Sheikh during stormy weather, killing three crew members.
CNN's Marilia Brocchetto and Livia Borghese, and journalist Barbie Nadeau contributed to this report.
Phobos-Grunt, is about to fall back to Earth ...[ 2632 ]
BBC., 14 January 2012 Last updated at 00:46 GMT
The German TIRA (Tracking and Imaging Radar) facility caught this image of Phobos-Grunt
Russia's failed Mars probe, Phobos-Grunt, is about to fall back to Earth - quite probably on Sunday.
The spacecraft has been losing altitude rapidly in recent days and will soon be pulled into the top of the atmosphere where it will be destroyed.
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Phobos-Grunt weighed some 13 tonnes at launch, but very little of this mass should make it through to the surface.
Russian space agency (Roscosmos) estimates suggest perhaps only 200kg will survive the fiery plunge.
Orbital debris experts say there are large uncertainties in predicting re-entry events and it is currently not possible to forecast precisely when or where on Earth the final descent will occur.
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"The major uncertainty for prediction is the atmospheric density the spacecraft encounters in orbit, but it's also due to the orientation of the vehicle as it comes in," explained Prof Richard Crowther, the UK Space Agency's chief engineer.
"It can very quickly tumble and if pieces break off - that all changes the trajectory and where debris might impact."
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This is the third high-profile spacecraft re-entry in four months, following the return in September of the American UARS satellite and the German Rosat telescope in October. Both fell over the ocean.
With so much of the Earth's surface covered by water, there is every chance Phobos-Grunt will do the same. (More information on the spacecraft's orbit can be found here)
- Phobos-Grunt sits on the cruise stage that was supposed to take it to Mars. Attached also is Yinghuo-1, China's first satellite built to go to the Red Planet
- Most of this 2.5 tonnes of hardware will burn up in the atmosphere. The more-than-10-tonnes of fuel is expected to explode when the tanks rupture
- Phobos-Grunt's orbit around the Earth means that it can only enter the atmosphere between the latitudes of 51.4 degrees North and South
The mission was supposed to be the most exciting Russian space science venture in decades - an audacious bid to scoop up rocky fragments from the Martian moon Phobos and bring them back for study in Earth laboratories.
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The spacecraft launched successfully on 8 November, entering a "parking orbit" some 345km above the Earth. But Phobos-Grunt then failed to push on to the Red Planet as planned.
Phobos-Grunt - Mishap sequence
- 8 Nov (GMT): The probe launched successfully on its Zenit rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome
- It was dropped off 11 minutes later in an elliptical orbit some 345km above the Earth
- Two firings from the probe's hydrazine-fuelled cruise stage were planned over South America
- The first, lasting 11.5 minutes, should have raised the orbit of Phobos-Grunt to 4,000km
- A second burn, four hours into the mission, was to have sent the probe on a path to Mars
- But Russian engineers later confirmed that neither burn took place
- Controllers have had only limited radio contact with the probe; mission recovery was not possible
- Re-entry is now imminent; 20-30 fragments are expected to survive the descent to Earth
For some reason, its big boost engine did not fire. Attempts to contact the spacecraft and diagnose the fault have proved fruitless.
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Both professional and amateur tracking groups have been trying to work out when it will fall out of the sky, and many of their estimates are clustering around late Sunday (GMT).
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The spacecraft's rate of descent is being monitored by radar and the tracking groups will be using this information to try to narrow the uncertainties as the weekend progresses.
A lot of attention has focussed on the amount of fuel that Phobos-Grunt is carrying.
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Out of the total launch mass of more than 13 tonnes, in excess of 10 tonnes was the fuel needed to complete the mission.
Phobos-Grunt's tanks were filled with the propellants Unsymmetrical DiMethylHydrazine (UDMH) and Dinitrogen TetrOxide (DTO), both of which are toxic.
But, crucially, the tanks are made of aluminium, which has a relatively low melting temperature.
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Analysts are confident the tanks will rupture and their contents will be destroyed or dispersed long before any debris can reach the surface.
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"Depending on when something breaks up and what it's made of and how it comes away from the main vehicle, it can either burn up or survive re-entry," said Prof Crowther.
"In the case of Phobos-Grunt, it's a flying fuel tank in many respects, and so most of the mass is fuel which should explode."
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The Russians have had a torrid run of space failures recently, leading the head of the country's space agency to wonder even if saboteurs were at work.
Western countries, which use Russian rockets to launch their satellites, are just worried though that some systematic failures have started to appear in what has traditionally been a highly regarded space industry.
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With their own opportunity to go to Mars now lost, the Russians may decide to put their future interplanetary efforts into joint ventures with the Americans and the Europeans. The Russians have an offer from the US and Europe to join the ExoMars missions to the Red Planet in 2016 and 2018.
Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on TwitterFriday, January 13, 2012
Drogue Chute Testing...[ 2631 ]
Image of the Chute Testing
Sub-scale Drogue Chute Testing
Dr. Anita Sengupta and Donn Liddle of NASA are pictured in the low speed wind tunnel at Texas A&M University, which is being used for testing of a scale model of the Orion spacecraft and its parachute system. Image credit: NASA/James Blair
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