Russia’s Mars-bound probe Phobos-Grunt had an almost immediate engine failure after launch, and now the race is on for the space agency to correct its course and get it back on track towards the red planet.
The craft successfully launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on 9 November (Moscow time), and separated from its Zenit-2 booster rocket some 11 minutes later. But its engines failed to kick in, and it’s now trapped in Earth’s orbit. via Wired
November 9, 2011
