Phobos-Grunt

Mission Profile

Phobos-Grunt was an ambitious Russian mission launched on 8 November 2011 to land on Mars's moon Phobos, collect 200 grams of surface material, and return the samples to Earth — the most complex interplanetary sample return mission ever attempted. The spacecraft also carried China's Yinghuo-1 Mars orbiter as a secondary payload and a terrestrial microorganism experiment for the LIFE project. Following separation from the Zenit launch vehicle, Phobos-Grunt's propulsion system failed to fire for the departure burn, leaving the spacecraft stranded in Earth orbit. All attempts to communicate with and restart the spacecraft failed, and it reentered the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean on 15 January 2012. The mission's failure was a major setback for Russian planetary science.