The European Space Agency announced Wednesday a ground station in Australia heard signals from Russia's marooned Phobos-Grunt Mars mission, but prospects are fading for the probe to reach the Red Planet as scheduled next year. Photo of Phobos-Grunt before launch. Credit: Roscosmos A tracking station in Perth succeeded in contacting Phobos-Grunt, a 29,000-pound, truck-sized probe designed to retrieve samples from the largest moon of Mars and return them to Earth. Officials have been unable to contact Phobos-Grunt since a problem prevented the craft from exiting Earth orbit and accelerating toward Mars after liftoff Nov. 8. Russia sought help from ESA, which maintains a network of radio...
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