New Phobos-Grunt Mars Mission
Russian space scientists this week floated the idea of building a new version of the Phobos-Grunt sample return spacecraft after the first model failed to escape Earth orbit and crashed in the Pacific on 15 January. Phobos-Grunt was launched on 9 November with the aim of bringing back samples from Mars's moon Phobos. But once in orbit it failed to respond to commands from the ground and did not ignite rockets which would set it on course for Phobos. Its orbit eventually degraded.
Lev Zelenyi, director of Moscow's Space Research Institute, said at a 1 February press conference that the team behind the mission wanted to try again. Phobos-Grunt-2 would be "improved and simplified", he says, and would save money by using much of original craft's infrastructure. But Russian Space Agency chief Vladimir Popovkin told the press this all depends on ExoMars. This ESA/NASA project will send an orbiter to Mars in 2016 followed by a large lander in 2018. Last year agencies asked Russia to join too and discussions are expected to be concluded this month.