Phobos-Grunt Mars probe to die a fiery death in the next two weeks

Russia's latest attempt to visit the Red Planet has, unfortunately, gone as well as its previous attempts, which is to say... poorly. We've been tracking the satellite, named Phobos-Grunt, since its successful liftoff, failure to leave earth orbit, abandonment, and now, destruction. Estimates indicate that Phobos-Grunt will reenter our atmosphere sometime between January 6th and the 19th, when it'll break into pieces and meet its end as a flaming ball of interplanetary fail. One consolation for the Ruskies: $165 million down the tubes is a lot less than, say, $1.2 billion.

Phobos-Grunt Mars probe to die a fiery death in the next two weeks originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 Jan 2012 10:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/05/phobos-grunt-mars-probe-to-crash-in-two-weeks/

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