viernes, 30 de diciembre de 2011

Russian spacecraft to crash - Telegraph.co.uk

They said they are expecting fragments of the probe to fall to Earth anywhere between 51.4 degrees north of the Equator and 51.4 degrees south, covering much of the planet's most densely populated areas.

Phobos-Grunt, which cost more than £100m to build, was designed to collect rock samples from the Martian moon, Phobos during a two and a half year mission.

Having launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, it separated from its booster rocket 11 minutes in, but failed to fire out of Earth's orbit.

This is the latest in a series of Russian launch failures that have raised concerns over the state of space industries in the country.

Engineers in Russia and the European Space Agency had tried to propel the spacecraft away from the Earth's orbit, but were unsuccessful.

Earlier this year, debris from a falling Nasa satellite approximately half the size also came crashing to Earth. No one was hurt.

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