If you’d begun to build a fallout shelter to protect you from the incoming failed Russian probe Phobos-Grunt and it’s potential Australian crash site, rest easy. The $US165 million spacecraft crashed back to earth yesterday, landing in the Pacific ocean off the coast of Chile.
Oh joy. Phobos-Grunt, that failed Mars moon soil probe launched in November, is set to re-enter the atmosphere sometime between January 6 and 9 – packed with tonnes of explosive hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide chemical fuel. Oh, and total battery failure has it charted to fall between latitudes 51.4 degrees north and 51.4 degrees south – an area spanning all of Australia (but also Africa, Japan and parts of North America and Western Europe).
One of the most interesting interplanetary spacecraft has failed before starting its voyage to Mars. It was going to land on Phobos, dig a piece and bring it back to Earth. It also carried Earths’s life for a very clever experiment.
