Launch of Fobos-Grunt

Fobos-Grunt was a Russian space mission intended to land on Phobos, the larger of Mars's two moons, collect soil samples and return them to Earth. It would have been the first such sample return from a Martian moon. After launch, the spacecraft reached Earth orbit, but the engines that were to send it toward Mars failed to fire, and it stayed stranded in low orbit. Attempts by Russian and European teams to contact it had little success. Investigators blamed the failure on a computer fault caused by radiation, and on inadequate testing. The probe fell back to Earth in early 2012, over the Pacific Ocean. It also carried the Chinese Yinghuo-1 orbiter, which was lost with it.

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