Russia To Study Martian Moons Once Again

Robbie writes "The Russian space program once faced bleak prospects, receiving meager government funding. Meanwhile, the United States and the ESA continued to send automatic probes to the Red Planet. NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers are now crawling on the planet's surface, while their Russian prototypes never lifted off and are now on display at the Space Research Institute's museum. However, the situation seems to be improving today. Under a stage-by-stage national program for studying Mars, the Phobos-Grunt automatic probe will be launched in October 2009. This cutting-edge modular spacecraft costs just 1.5 billion rubles ($64.4 million)."

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Re:Phobos Grunt = Doom guy

[K. S. Kyosuke]

"Grunt" is the Russian word for "soil", not a word for "An infantry soldier. slang (orig. US)". But still, yours is an interesting thought. :-)

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Pictures from the previous Phobos Mission

[mbone]

Pictures from the Soviet Phobos mission can be found here [mentallandscape.com].

Re:Phobos Grunt = Doom guy

[Cyberax]

They are mostly synonyms.

"Pochva" means a part of Earth's crust on which plants can grow.

"Grunt" means any soil.

PS: Russian is my native language.