Russia’s troubled Mars probe to hit earth
January 13th, 2012 - 3:41 pm ICT by IANS ( Leave a comment )Moscow, Jan 13 (IANS/RIA Novosti) Russia’s troubled Phobos Grunt spacecraft is expected to fall back to earth between Sunday and Monday morning, the US Strategic Command said Friday.
Phobos Grunt, Russia’s most ambitious planetary mission in decades, was launched Nov 9 but got stuck in earth orbit due to propulsion failure. The spacecraft was to explore one of Mars’ two moons, Phobos.
Researchers from the US said the debris would fall between 02:39 GMT Jan 15 and 07:39 GMT Jan 16.
The Russian space agency Roscosmos said earlier that Phobos would fall on the same dates in the Indian Ocean to the north of Madagascar. Roscosmos said that about 20-30 pieces of debris from the spacecraft weighing 200 kg would hit Earth, while the toxic fuel would burn in the atmosphere at a height of about 100 km.
–IANS/RIA Novosti
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Tags: atmosphere, debris, decades, earth orbit, failure, grunt, indian ocean, kg, madagascar, mars probe, mars two moons, monday morning, moscow, planetary mission, propulsion, ria novosti russia, roscosmos, russian space agency, spacecraft, strategic command
