On July 12, 1988 the USSR launched Phobos II, an unmanned satellite to Mars. It arrived in January 1989 and entered an orbit around Mars as the first phase towards its real destination, a small Martian moon called Phobos. The mission was flawless until the craft aligned itself with the moon. On March 28, 1989 an elliptical object was detected moving towards the satellite seconds before it failed. All indications were that the elliptical object had attacked the satellite which was now dead and left spinning out of control. Read the whole Phobos2 Article