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Roscosmos forecasts Phobos-Grunt debris fallout on January 15

The exact place and time for the Phobos-Grunt debris fallout are being specified as long as the altitude of its orbit is getting lower

Photo ITAR-TASS

Photo ITAR-TASS

MOSCOW, January 11 (Itar-Tass) —— The Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) has made public a specified forecast for the fallout of the debris of the automatic interplanetary station Phobos-Grunt.

“The forecast window for the fallout of the Phobos-Grunt debris on the Earth was set between January 14 and January 16 with the focal point at 13:18 Moscow time on January 15. The probable fallout area is located from 51.4 degrees northern longitude to 51.4 degrees of southern latitude,” a Roscosmos source said. The probable fallout area is the Indian Ocean, southwest of Jakarta, the Indonesian capital.

The exact place and time for the Phobos-Grunt debris fallout are being specified as long as the altitude of its orbit is getting lower. The operative group is maintaining constant control of the Phobos-Grunt de-orbiting, the Roscosmos source said.

The Phobos-Grunt automatic interplanetary station with a weight of 13,505 kilograms was to enter the Martian orbit and to land a descent module of the Martian satellite Phobos along with distant research. After taking Martian ground samples the Phobos-Grunt station was to fly back to the Earth. The project cost about five billion roubles. However, Phobos-Grunt, which was launched from the Baikonur spaceport on November 9, failed to enter a flight trajectory to the Mars, because its cruise engine did not activate for an unclear reason yet.

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