Last month I posted about some fakakta Russian space probe full of toxic substances and radioactive crap. The Russian space agency,  Roscosmos, lost control of the Phobos-Grunt space probe in the early stages of the mission and was not able to regain control over it ever since. Time is quickly running out and Russia called off all efforts to try to get the space probe back online. It is projected that the Phobos-Grunt space probe will reenter Earth’s atmosphere in early January, probably making a hell of a fireball in the process, since it’s loaded with 7 tons of highly toxic fuel! This would be the third incident of this kind in just five months.
Only a couple of months ago two satellites crash-landed in September and October (UARS and ROSAT, respectively).

Hit the break and read more about the Phobos-Grunt probe.

Known as Phobos-Grunt, the robotic spacecraft carries some 7.5 tons of fuel and a small amount of radioactive cobalt. The Russian space agency, Roscosmos, expects the probe to plunge back to Earth around Jan. 9.

A top Russian space scientist sent an open letter on Thursday to colleagues worldwide apologizing for the failure.

“Despite people being at work 24/7 since the launch, all these attempts have not yield[ed] any satisfactory results,” wrote Lev Zelenyi, director of the Space Research Institute in Moscow. The institute, which planned the long-anticipated mission, is part of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

How about apologizing to the people that soon are going to be affected by this thing? Trust me, nobody besides you give two craps about what the world scientists think.

Zelenyi added, “We are working nevertheless on the issue of re-entry and [the] probability of where and which fragments may hit the ground (if any).”

The probe carries a few micrograms of radioactive cobalt-57 to power one of the spacecraft’s instruments, but Zelenyi wrote that this tiny amount of material did not pose a danger.

Phobos-Grunt lifted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Nov. 9. After the launch placed the probe in low-Earth orbit, a booster rocket failed to ignite. Attempts to diagnose and fix the problem were largely fruitless.

Frantic last-minute repairs to the probe’s electrical system may have contributed to the failure, Zak said, citing sources at NPO Lavochkin, the Russian company that built Phobos-Grunt. “There was a serious cable connection problem discovered in Baikonur” just weeks before launch, Zak said. “They had to disconnect the cables, and these were hard connections. They had to cut them and wire them to a different route.” He said engineers re-soldered electrical connections even though the craft was fueled with highly flammable hydrazine.

Russia space watchers say the mission was set up for failure.

“This project is overly ambitious, it’s overloaded with stuff, and it’s mismanaged,” Zak said. “The Chinese spacecraft was added at the last minute. That required a complete redesign, it complicated the spacecraft, and made it heavier and much harder to control.”

As always the source article doesn’t say where it is going to land so be prepared to run for your life as soon as you find out, either through the mainstream media or Paranoid News.org.

Visit washingtonpost.com to read the entire article: Russia gives up on failed Mars probe, braces for crash landing next month

Now, if you excuse me, I’ll be calling my shrink about my new phobia: Phobosphobia, which is the fear of poorly constructed, Russian space probes that may fall on your head.