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Phobos Grunt

Fobos-Grunt
Cebit 2011-fobos-grunt together with upper stage.jpg
A model of Fobos-Grunt presented during CeBIT 2011
Mission type Phobos lander
Sample return
Operator Roskosmos
COSPAR ID 2011-065A
SATCAT no. 37872
Mission duration Planned: 3 years
Final: 2 months, 6 days
Spacecraft properties
Manufacturer Lavochkin, Russian Space Research Institute
Launch mass 13,505 kg (29,773 lb) with fuel
Dry mass 2,300 kg (5,100 lb)
Power 1000 W (main orbiter/lander) + 300 W (Earth return vehicle)
Start of mission
Launch date 8 November 2011, 20:16 (2011-11-08UTC20:16Z) UTC
Rocket Zenit-2SB
Launch site Baikonur 45/1
End of mission
Decay date 15 January 2012 (2012-01-16)
Orbital parameters
Reference system Geocentric
Regime Low Earth
Perigee 112 kilometres (70 mi)
Apogee 125 kilometres (78 mi)
Inclination 51.4°
Epoch 15 January 2012

Fobos-Grunt or Phobos-Grunt (Russian: Фобос-Грунт, literally "Phobos-Ground") was an attempted Russian sample return mission to Phobos, one of the moons of Mars. Fobos-Grunt also carried the Chinese Mars orbiter Yinghuo-1 and the tiny Living Interplanetary Flight Experiment funded by the Planetary Society.

It was launched on 9 November 2011 at 02:16 local time (8 November 2011, 20:16 UTC) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, but subsequent rocket burns intended to set the craft on a course for Mars failed, leaving it stranded in low Earth orbit. Efforts to reactivate the craft were unsuccessful, and it fell back to Earth in an uncontrolled re-entry on 15 January 2012, over the Pacific Ocean west of Chile. The return vehicle was to have returned to Earth in August 2014, carrying up to 200 g of soil from Phobos.

Funded by the Russian Federal Space Agency and developed by Lavochkin and the Russian Space Research Institute, Fobos-Grunt was the first Russian-led interplanetary mission since the failed Mars 96. The last successful interplanetary missions were the Soviet Vega 2 in 1985–1986, and the partially successful Fobos 2 in 1988–1989. Fobos-Grunt was designed to become the first spacecraft to return a macroscopic sample from an extraterrestrial body since Luna 24 in 1976. (Hayabusa returned microscopic grains of asteroid material in 2010, and Stardust returned cometary dust in 2006.)


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