Latest Roscosmos Stories

Russian and European space officials on Friday agreed on a joint Mars mission to hunt for signs of life on the Red Planet, after NASA pulled the plug on its program, the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) said on April 6, reports RiaNovosti. Despite describing the ExoMars project as the “Holy Grail” of exploration, NASA bailed out in February due to budgetary problems. That project meltdown left the ESA with few other options to launch a joint mission to Mars. The two-spacecraft...

Russian space agency Roscosmos announced on Tuesday the initial results of an investigation into its failed Mars mission, blaming cosmic radiation for a computer glitch that ultimately doomed the Phobos-Grunt spacecraft, Moscow's first deep space mission in twenty years. "The most likely reason in the commission's opinion is the local influence of heavy charged particles from outer space on the onboard computer system," the RIA Novosti news agency quoted Roscosmos chief Vladimir Popovkin...

Russian cargo ship Progress M-14M (ISS Progress 46) launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 5:06 a.m. Thursday morning (Wednesday 6:06 p.m. EST), carrying 2.9 tons of food, fuel and equipment for the crew aboard the International Space Station, reports ABC News. The Progress 46 re-supply vessel is scheduled to arrive at Pirs docking compartment early Saturday (Friday evening EST). The successful launch was a critical one for the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, which has...

Russia said on Tuesday that radiation from U.S. radar is most likely to blame for causing the Phobos-Grunt probe to fail its mission to Mars. The RIA-Novosti news agency said that Yury Koptev, head of the scientific committee of state technology company Russian Technology, confirmed the theory. "To test (the theory), an equipment block similar to the one on Phobos-Grunt will be exposed to radiation from the possible unintentional exposure to American radars," Koptev, a former head of...

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....

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,...

A series of failed Russian space missions has impelled Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to contemplate bringing criminal charges against space officials responsible for the embarrassing failures. Medvedev warned that space officials could face stiff fines and possible criminal penalties. “The latest failures [in the space industry] seriously harm Russia’s competitiveness,” he told the RIA Novosti news agency. “This means that we need to conduct a serious analysis and punish those...

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...

The European Space Agency (ESA) has formally invited Russia to participate in a pair of space missions in 2016 and 2018, various media outlets reported late last week. According to Space News reporter Peter B. de Selding, ESA Director-General Jean-Jacques Dordain confirmed on Thursday that the organization had written to ask Roscosmos, the country's national space agency, to join the ExoMars project as a third partner alongside the ESA and NASA. The agency is hoping that Roscosmos will...

  Russian space agency Roscosmos said Friday that the reason for the Soyuz rocket failure on August 24 was a production line defect. The space agency said a blocked duct cut the fuel supply to the Soyuz-U's third stage, causing its engine to shut down prematurely. The Soyuz rockets are currently the only transportation to the International Space Station since NASA retired its shuttle program in July. Russia grounded its Soyuz fleet after the accident a month ago.  The space...