Phobos-Grunt Remains in Doomed Orbit

Officials at the European Space Agency (ESA) announce that the commands they sent to the Russian failed Phobos-Grunt spacecraft did not manage to force it to heighten its orbit. ESA and the Russian Federal Space Agency (RosCosmos) believed that this would allow better communications with the probe.

The mission failed shortly after reaching orbit, on November 8. The thrusters aboard the spacecraft failed to initialize, and to place Phobos-Grunt on a Mars-bound orbit. At this point, Russian engineers cannot figure out what caused the glitch, since they cannot communicate with the probe.

At this time, the spacecraft is in a very low orbit, less than 200 miles (320 kilometers) above the surface of the planet. If mission controllers cannot force it to depart for Mars in about two weeks, then Phobos-Grunt will have failed entirely, Spaceflight Now reports.