Phobos Grunt: ESA coordinates international satellite reentry campaign

An international campaign to assess the imminent atmospheric reentry of Russia's Phobos–Grunt Mars craft is being coordinated by experts in ESA's Space Debris Office.

Participants include NASA and Roscosmos as part of the 12-member Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee.

ESA experts are working with international partners in a coordinated prediction campaign focused on Phobos–Grunt, a Russian Mars mission that is expected to largely burn up in Earth's atmosphere in the next few days.

Phobos–Grunt was launched on 8 November 2011 into an initial Earth orbit of 206 x 341 km. The injection into an Earth-escape trajectory to Mars failed, and the spacecraft was declared lost by the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, on 13 December.

On 2 January, a comprehensive reentry prediction campaign for Phobos–Grunt was begun by the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC), a technical forum for the worldwide coordination of activities related to human-made and natural debris in space.

ESA - ESA coordinates international satellite reentry campaign