Russia will send another sample mission to the Martian moon Phobos if the European Space Agency (ESA) decides not to include Russia in its ExoMars program, the head of Russia’s space agency said on Tuesday. The space agency also announced that cosmic radiation was the most likely cause of the failure of the Phobos-Grunt probe that crashed to Earth this month, and suggested that a low-quality imported component may have been vulnerable to the radiation.
Phobos-Grunt, Russia's most ambitious planetary mission in decades, was launched on November 9, but failed due to propulsion failure and crashed back to Earth on January 15.
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