ESA Establishes Contact with Lost Mars-Bound Spacecraft

Experts at the European Space Agency (ESA) announced on November 22 that one of the organization's listening stations, in Perth, Australia, received a signal from the Russian-built Phobos-Grunt spacecraft.

The sample-return mission launched on November 8, heading for the Martian moon Phobos. However, upon reaching orbit, the probe failed to activate its onboard engines, and mission managers were unable to establish contact in order to run diagnostics.

ESA investigators have already passed their data to their Russian counterparts, and have trained two other massive antennas, in French Guiana and the Canary Islands, to keep track of the vehicle, and maintain constant contact.

RosCosmos has a very limited window of opportunity at its disposal to carry out any software repairs that may be in order. The launch window for Mars closes on December 15, and will remain closed until at list mid-2013, ScienceNow reports.