Space debris
January 15, 2012
The failed Russian spacecraft Phobos-Grunt re-entered the Earth's atmosphere on Sunday and crashed into the Pacific Ocean.
Russia's Defense Ministry said fragments of the failed probe hit the ocean 1,250 kilometers (775 miles) west of Wellington Island, off the coast of Chile, after wildly varying reports over where it would land.
"According to information from mission control of the space forces, the fragments of Phobos-Grunt should have fallen into the Pacific Ocean at 17:45 GMT," a spokesman for Russia's space services told the Interfax news agency.
The $170-million (134 million euros) spacecraft should have been on an expedition to Mars' largest moon to collect soil samples, but became trapped in Earth's orbit after its launch on November 9.
Attempts by experts from the Russian and European Space Agency to bring it back to life all failed. Since then, the spacecraft slowly lost altitude due to the pull of Earth's gravity. It was one of Russia's most expensive and ambitious space mission since Soviet times.
Earlier reports suggested it could have crashed closer to South America, possibly in Argentina. Others had predicted it could end up anywhere along its orbital path, including southern Europe and the Atlantic Ocean.
Minimal risk
The return of Phobos-Grunt was being monitored by dozens of organizations, including the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordinating Committee, an offshoot of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. The panel includes representatives from 12 space agencies, among them the US, Russia and China.
The spacecraft is the third large satellite to crash back to Earth since September, when NASA's defunct Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite fell out of orbit, showering debris over the Pacific.
Germany's Rosat X-Ray Telescope re-entered a month later, plummeting into the Indian Ocean's Bay of Bengal.
Space officials said that despite its size, risks posed by its crash were minimal as the probe's toxic rocket fuel and most of the craft's structure were expected to have burnt up in the atmosphere.
Author: Charlotte Chelsom-Pill, Gregg Benzow (AFP, AP, Reuters)
Editor: Martin Kuebler