A Russian probe on Wednesday set off on a three year return mission to Mars that aims to bring the first sample of a Martian moon back to Earth and re-establish Moscow as a power in planetary exploration.
Specialists of Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) work with the Phobos-Grunt spacecraft as they prepare to mount it on board a Zenit rocket at the Russian leased Kazakhstan's Baikonur cosmodrome in October 2011. The Russian probe blasted off on a three year return mission to Mars that aims to bring the first sample of the Martian moon Phobos back to Earth, the Russian space agency said.
The Phobos-Grunt probe blasted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on a Zenit-2SB rocket in what Russia hopes will be its first successful planetary mission since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
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About the author
- Writer: AFP News agency
- Position: Agence France-Presse
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