Russia is set to launch a probe to the Martian moon Phobos by 2022, the head of the Russian Space Research Institute has revealed. The renewal of the ambitious program, which includes taking samples of the moon’s soil, comes despite previous failure.
“We plan to get back to Phobos in 2020-2022,” the institute’s director, Lev Zeleny, announced on Tuesday, speaking at the Russian Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
The new interplanetary probe mission will become “a springboard for implementing other similar international programs,” he added. It is currently codenamed “Boomerang.”
Earlier in April, the scientist said that the mission to the Martian vicinity will be repeated despite the failure of the Phobos-Grunt probe in 2011.