Debris Of Failed Russian Mars Probe Now Beneath The Pacific

Officials in Russia, US and Europe agree that based on tracking data, it appears the failed Phobos-Grunt Mars probe burned up on re-entry over the Pacific Ocean Sunday afternoon.

The BBC reports the spacecraft's last orbit took it over Japan and the Solomon Islands, to the east of Australia and New Zealand. Alexei Zolotukhin of the Russian Defense Ministry told RIA Novosti, "Phobos-Grunt fragments have crashed down in the Pacific Ocean." The official Russian conclusion is that the fragments fell about  1,250 kilometers (777 miles) west of the island of Wellington at about 1745Z.

Roscosmos had earlier predicted that only about 440 pounds or less of the spacecraft's 14-ton total mass would reach the surface. The probe was supposed to visit the Martian moon Phobos, then return with rock samples. But a failure of the launch vehicle's cruise stage left the probe stranded in a decaying low-earth orbit, and neither the Russians nor the European Space Agency were able to establish communications with the spacecraft.

Also destroyed were two other payloads, a Chinese Mars orbiter called Yinghuo-1 and the Living Interplanetary Flight Experiment funded by the Planetary Society.

FMI: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fobos-Grunt