The Russians are gearing up for a mission to Mars and one of its moons in 2009. As per Russia's space agency, it is planning to send a space exploration capsule up to the Red Planet to analyze its surface and also collect test samples from one of its moons.

The launching of the space exploration capsule, 'Phobos-Grunt' is scheduled for October 2009. It will take three years for the expedition to complete. At its first stage, the capsule will be bringing back samples of soil from Mars' natural satellite planet Phobos to Earth.

The samples will help research in details in laboratory conditions. The scientists think that this study will be able to answer or come close to decoding a wide spectrum of scientific questions on the physics of the solar system, the space agency hopes.



Posted by: Sean    Source

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