Moscow: A Russian space probe designed to boost the nation's pride on a bold mission to a moon of Mars came down in flames today, showering fragments into the south Pacific west of Chile's coast, officials said.
Pieces from the Phobos-Ground, which had become stuck in Earth's orbit, landed in water 1,250 kilometers (775 miles) west of Wellington Island in Chile's south, the Russian military Air and Space Defense Forces said in a statement carried by the country's news agencies.
The military space tracking facilities were monitoring the probe's crash, its spokesman Col. Alexei Zolotukhin said. Zolotukhin said the deserted ocean area is where Russia guides its discarded space cargo ships serving the International Space Station.
RIA Novosti news agency, however, cited Russian ballistic experts who said the fragments fell over a broader patch of Earth's surface, spreading from the Atlantic and including the territory of Brazil....
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10:04 AM, Jan 16, 2012
