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/ 17 January 2012
Russia says the failure of its Phobos-Grunt probe for Mars could have been caused by radiation from US radars.
Russia’s doomed probe for Mars spirals ever closer to the Earth before it plunges back into the atmosphere in a fiery end.
Russian space agency Roscosmos says 200kg fragments of the Mars probe <em>Phobos-Grunt</em> may survive re-entry but expects toxic fuel to vaporise.
Russia’s failed Mars moon probe points to problems of a once-pioneering space industry struggling to recover after a generation of brain drain.
Russia has made desperate efforts to give a vital boost to a pioneering Mars probe that now hangs in a low Earth orbit and could crash back down.