Russians set for Mars adventure
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Phobos-Grunt will attempt to end a dreadful run of failure for Russia at the Red Planet
Russia is about to launch an audacious bid to scoop up rock and dust samples from the Martian moon Phobos and bring them back to Earth for study.
The dusty debris should provide fresh insights into the origin of the 27km-wide moon that many scientists suspect may actually be a captured asteroid.
The mission is called Phobos-Grunt - "Grunt" means "soil" in Russian.
It is a significant venture also because it will be carrying China's first Mars satellite.
Yinghou-1 is a 115kg probe that will ride piggyback and be released into an observation orbit around the Red Planet.
The mission is set to lift off from Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on a Zenit-2SB rocket at 02:16 local time on Wednesday (20:16 GMT Tuesday).
The moon samples could be back on Earth in 33 months' time.
Torrid history
Russia is hoping Phobos-Grunt will finally see it conquer its Martian curse.
Moscow has despatched a total of 16 missions to the Red Planet since the 1960s. None has successfully completed its goals, with the most recent endeavour - the sophisticated Mars-96 spacecraft - being destroyed in a failed launch.
Lead scientist at Moscow's Space Research Institute, Alexander Zakharov, said: "We haven't had a successful interplanetary expedition for over 15 years.
"In that time, the people, the technology, everything has changed. It's all new for us; in many ways we are working from scratch."
Phobos-Grunt is a hefty spacecraft, requiring several elements to complete the tasks of landing on the moon, picking up the samples and then despatching them home.
If you include the cruise stage (and all its fuel) that will take Phobos-Grunt and Yinghou-1 out to Mars, the total launch mass for the mission is more than 11 tonnes.
Phobos-Grunt is scheduled to reach Mars next September.
After dumping its cruise stage and releasing Yinghou-1, the main spacecraft will manoeuvre itself into position to land on Phobos.
Shipped home
Detailed mapping of the moon has been conducted by the European Space Agency's Mars Express (MEx) satellite, and this information is being used to identify a suitable location to land in February 2013.
Detailed mapping by the Europeans will help the mission find a safe landing location
Once on the surface, a robotic arm will pick up samples of the regolith ("soil"). Some of this material will be analysed there and then, but a portion of it - about 200g - will be transferred to a canister for return to Earth.
This canister and its departure stage should be sent home within a few days of Phobos-Grunt's arrival on the moon. All being well, the canister should fall to Earth in the Kazakh desert in August 2014.
Potato-shaped Phobos is a fascinating target. Although it has been studied extensively by passing satellites, it still holds many secrets - not just about itself, but also the planet below.
It is one of two moons at Mars (the other being Deimos). It has an extremely low density, indicating it probably has many interior voids.
Some scientists think it may be a collection of rocky rubble that coalesced around the Red Planet soon after its formation. Another explanation is that it is an asteroid that came close to Mars and got caught in its gravity.
'Water bears'
The French space agency (Cnes) has provided instrumentation for Phobos-Grunt. The European Space Agency, in addition to its survey information from MEx, will be providing ground support.
US participation comes in the form of the space advocacy group, The Planetary Society.
It is sending its Living Interplanetar Flight Experiment (LIFE) on Phobos-Grunt.
This package of hardy micro-organisms will make the journeys out and back inside a separate compartment in the return capsule.
It will test theories on how living organisms could spread through the Solar System by simulating aspects of the long-duration voyage that microbes could make in a meteoroid that has been blasted off one planetary body and landed on another.
The microscopic participants in LIFE include the bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans, known for its ability to withstand high doses of radiation, and the eight-legged tardigrade (or "water bear"), a microscopic invertebrate that has already demonstrated its ability to survive short exposure to the space environment.
