Russia planning to resend missions to Mars, Moon

PanARMENIAN.Net - Under an ambitious plan with the European Space Agency (ESA), Russian scientists have new hope of again sending missions to the Moon and to Mars, AFP reports.

"The last decade was truly difficult for us," the institute's director Lev Zeleny told AFP.

Among the biggest blunders was the tragic Phobos-Grunt probe, which in 2011 failed to reach its planned course to one of the moons of Mars and crashed back to Earth over the Pacific Ocean.

"But now the program is entering a new stage for this decade."

Next month, a Russian Proton rocket is scheduled to launch the first of two missions under ExoMars, a joint venture with the ESA, to snoop out possible life, past or present, to the red planet.

Zeleny's hopes are high that this will return Moscow to its glory days of space exploration -- if the project actually gets off the ground, AFP says.

In the first mission, an orbital spacecraft will search for traces of methane in the atmosphere of Mars -- possible evidence of biological activity.

For the second part in 2018, Russian engineers are to build a complex landing system to drop an ESA-built Martian rover to the planet's surface, a platform not only to ensure a soft landing but also to serve as "a science lab in itself" for inspecting the landing site, said Zeleny.

"If we manage this, it will be a major breakthrough," he said.