Russian Probe to Crash Back to Earth
The Russian Probe, Grunt will be crashing back to Earth within the next two months – so say Russian scientists who are disappointed at the failure of their latest project. The probe was first launched last Wednesday destined for the Martian Moon Phobos. And it seems this is only one of several ill fated Russian probes heading toward the Martian Moon only to have their journey cut short. Is there a conspiracy in the works? Or is there a more logical explanation for this strange occurrence? With scientists racing against the clock to correct the error expected to destroy the Probe entirely, it’s still not entirely clear what went wrong.
Russia has been wanting to get up close date from the Mars moon of Phobos for decades, only to fall flat once again as the project crashes and burns once more. But are we seeing a complete fluke this time? Or is this gradual pattern of lost missions slowly adding up to something quite a bit more substantial? Perhaps in time we can tell. Phobos has been on the minds of scientists for decades as a potential target in light of the first two probes which were also lost under mysterious circumstances.
The weirdest thing about it all is when this news of yet another space probe lost is taken into account with the perspective of the Phobos 1 and Phobos 2 space probes launched in July of 1988. On its way to the planet, the first space probe disappeared in mid flight due to a malfunction that was later blamed on a programmer on the ground. Unable to make contact with the probe again, it was considered lost and scientists instead turned their efforts toward the Phobos 2 probe. But while the probe was on its final approach to the mysterious moon it started spontaneously sending back data that suggested something on the surface of the planet was moving. Something disc-like. 1988 was a sensational time for UFO stories, but the details behind the disappearance of the Phobos 2 is probably still to this day the most sensational and unexplained event in the history of Russia’s long voyage to the stars.
Dismissed by the public media, the photos sent out were released by then prominent scientists although they were dismissed by the Soviet Space Agency Glavskomos. The object pictured, by the way, was estimated to be 20 kilometers long – meaning if it was an error it was a big one.
A 20 mile wide artifact doesn’t just randomly appear in a photo, particularly while in a vacuum. The fact that behind the photo there were indicators of structures on the surface of Phobos certainly didn’t make the task of debunking the photo in Russian Newspapers easy. But in the climate of 1989 it was far easier to dismiss the idea altogether than cope with the disturbing narrative that quickly unfolded to those following the events. And so the mysterious event is once again being relived by a whole new era of scientists who had hoped to explore Phobos. It seems his Martian moon does not want to be disturbed, and we are not welcome there. At least not at the moment.