Russian Mission to Mars

Phobos, meaning "fear," is a tiny moon, only spanning about 25 kilometers across, that orbits around Mars. Phobos is so small that it does not even have enough gravity to allow it to acquire a round shape, like our own moon. The Red Planet's other moon Deimos, meaning "panic," is even smaller. We have some theories about how these tiny moons came to orbit Mars, but we are still unsure. That's where Russia comes in with their new spacecraft, Phobos-Grunt.

The name comes from the Russian, Fobos-Grunt, for "Phobos Soil" because the primary objective for the mission is to collect and study soil samples and then bring them back to the earth. The last time material was collected from another world was in 1976, by Luna 24. The craft will also observe Mars and its environment, looking for past or potential life.

Furthermore, the craft will carry the LIFE experiment, which stands for the Living Interplanetary Flight Experiment. This experiment consists of sending some selective microorganisms—representatives from bacteria, eukaryota, and archaea—for a three-year interplanetary trip to see if they will survive. This experiment is designed to simulate a Martian meteoroid on a journey to the earth.

The idea for the Russian mission to Phobos came about in 1999, three years after a devastating loss when the Mars-96 craft broke up in the earth's atmosphere during launch.  It was scheduled to launch in October 2009, but the mission was delayed and the next launch window is not until 2011. Below is a model of the spacecraft.