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Summary A failed Russian space probe has crashed in the Pacific Ocean.
A Russian space probe designed to boost the nations pride on a bold mission to a moon of Mars came down in flames Sunday, showering fragments into the south Pacific west of Chiles coast, officials said.The fragments of the Phobos-Ground landed in water 1,250 kilometres (775 miles) west of Wellington Island off the southern coast of Chile, according to a statement from the military Space Forces carried by Russian news agencies.Space Forces spokesman Col. Alexei Zolotukhin said Russian tracking facilities were monitoring the probes crash.The Phobos-Ground was designed to travel to one of Mars two moons, Phobos, land on it, collect soil samples and fly them back to Earth in 2014 in one of the most daunting interplanetary missions ever. It got stranded in Earths orbit after itsNov. 9 launch, and efforts by Russian and European Space Agency experts to bring it back to life have failed.The $170 million probe was one of the heaviest and most toxic pieces of space junk ever to crash to Earth, but space officials and experts said the risks posed were minimal because its toxic rocket fuel and most of the crafts structure would burn up in the atmosphere anyway.It was Russias most expensive and the most ambitious space mission since Soviet times. Russias space chief has acknowledged the Phobos-Ground mission was ill-prepared, but said that Roscosmos had to give it the go-ahead so as not to miss the limited Earth-to-Mars launch window.
