From New York Times: Russia: Hopes for Space Probe Fade
By MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ
Hopes of salvaging an ambitious unmanned mission to Mars dwindled on Thursday, with Russian scientists failing to make contact with a multimillion dollar space probe that stalled in a low-earth orbit after the engines responsible for sending it toward Mars did not fire. Experts said that there was still a small chance the probe’s software could be reprogrammed and the mission saved, though there were growing fears that the craft, filled with toxic fuels, could crash to earth within days or weeks. “With every orbit around the earth, the craft is loosing altitude and speed,” an official told the news agency Interfax. Officials involved with the space program told Russian news agencies that they made several failed attempts on Thursday to restart the engines on the Phobos-Grunt spacecraft, which was supposed to bring back soil samples from the Martian moon Phobos.
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