Latest Phobos Stories

The Russian probe that has been stranded in Earth's orbit since its November launch is expected to return to Earth within the next few days, according to various media reports Friday. Brian Vastag of the Washington Post said that the Phobos-Grunt spacecraft, which was to travel to Mars to study one of that planet's two moons, "will plunge to its doom this weekend, likely on Sunday." Ned Potter of ABC News wrote that the probe would "most likely" fall back to Earth on Sunday or Monday....

A series of Russian satellite failures over the past year may be due to sabotage by foreign nations, Russia’s space chief said on Tuesday in remarks that seemed to be directed at the United States. "I wouldn't like to accuse anyone, but today there exists powerful means to influence spacecraft, and their use can't be excluded," said Roscosmos chief Vladimir Popovkin in an interview with Izvestia daily. Popovkin said it was not clear why several launches went amiss at precisely the...

Despite the failure of the Phobos-Grunt spacecraft, which could fall back to Earth early next week, Russian space officials say that they would like a second crack at sending a probe to the Mars moon, Dan Vergano of USA Today reported this weekend. "The Phobos-(Grunt) science team would like to repeat the mission using (the) experience that we got working on this mission," mission scientist Alexander Zakharov of the Space Research Institute in Moscow told Vergano via e-mail. However, the...

The Russian probe that was to explore Mars' moon Phobos before becoming stranded in orbit is expected to fall back to Earth sometime next week, various media outlets are reporting. Early last week, European Space Agency (ESA) space debris chief Heiner Klinkrad told Space.com columnist Leonard David that current re-entry forecasts predict that the Phobos-Grunt satellite, which was launched on November 9, could plummet through Earth's atmosphere on January 14 or 15, plus or minus five day....

Russia’s space agency said on Friday that its Phobos-Grunt spacecraft, which was originally bound for a moon of Mars but has been stranded in orbit since November, will instead fall back to Earth next month. Most of the toxic fuel and radioactive material onboard the unmanned spacecraft are expected to burn up on re-entry, but 20-30 fragments of the probe will survive to the surface, the space agency (Roscosmos) warned. Current estimates for the timing of the fall are between January...

After abandoning efforts to save its Martian moon probe, Phobos-Grunt, that has been stranded in Earth’s orbit since early November, Russia is now focusing on where the blame lies for the expensive mishap. The accused: Alaska’s High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) transmitter. Phobos-Grunt, now considered a 7.5 ton heap of space debris, is expected to plunge back to Earth around January 9, two months after it became stranded, according to Russian space agency,...

After previously announcing that efforts to contact Russia’s stranded Phobos-Grunt Mars probe had been abandoned, the European Space Agency (ESA) is now saying that two more attempts will be tried in hopes of allowing a controlled reentry. The attempts will be performed by ESA’s 15-meter antenna in Maspalomas, a station in the  Canary Islands’ Gran Canaria. “We will make two more attempts on Tuesday on a request from the Russian side,” Rene Pichel said. The roughly 2.5 year...

European Space Agency (ESA) efforts to contact the stranded Phobos-Grunt probe have been abandoned, the organization has announced. The probe, which was scheduled to head to the largest of Mars' two moons on a roughly 2.5 year mission, was stranded in Earth's orbit shortly after its November 9 launch. Last week, both the ESA and the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) were able to briefly re-establish contact with Phobos-Grunt, but further attempts to send commands to the probe have...

Officials with the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) said on Thursday that they had successfully made contact with the stranded Phobos-Grunt probe, one day after the European Space Agency (ESA) reported having received a signal from the craft. According to AFP reports, the Interfax news agency quoted Roscosmos spokesman Alexei Kuznetsov as stating that the agency had received "a signal" and "some telemetry data" from the probe on Thursday afternoon, and that "specialists" at the...

Russia’s Phobos-Grunt space probe, lost in Earth’s orbit for the past two weeks, has finally responded to a signal from space officials working for the European Space Agency (ESA). ESA said on its website today that its tracking station in Perth, Australia had received a signal from the probe at 2025 GMT on Tuesday. ESA is now working with Russian space agency Roscosmos to try to maintain communications with Phobos-Grunt. “ESA teams are working closely with engineers in Russia to...