Posted on Tuesday, November 29, 2011 by
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It was a great chance for Russia to prove, they were still in the space race. On Nov. 8, 2011 Russia's Phobos-Grunt lifted off with Zenit rocket, to collect samples from one of the moon's of the Mars called "Phobos". It is a $165 million mission. The main objective of the mission was to bring Phobos soil to Earth for scientific research.
Image Credit: Roscosmos
Unfortunately, there was a malfunction with the spacecraft's thrusters left it stranded in the Earth's Orbit. Roscosmos didn't have much luck contacting the probe. With the help of European Space Agency (ESA), a ground station in Australia heared signals from Phobos-Grunt and a tracking station in Perth succeeded in contacting Phobos-Grunt at about 2025 GMT Nov. 22, 2011.
Yesterday, ESA officials sent commands to Phobos-Grunt to raise the spacecraft's orbit, but the instructions went unanswered. The ESA will once again attempt to contact the Russian probe Grunt tonight (Nov. 29)
If Phobos-Grunt cannot be saved, early estimates suggest the spacecraft could fall back to Earth sometime in mid-January.
Labels: ESA, mars, news, russia
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