Soviet Mission to Mars Believed Running Into Trouble

A multimillion-dollar Soviet space probe hurtling toward Mars apparently is having serious mechanical problems that could cause a severe setback for the Soviet space program, a newspaper reported Sunday.

“There is enough smoke that I suspect there is a little fire,” said Sam Keller, deputy associate administrator for space science and applications for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

“You can’t tell how serious it is, but there is no question they are having problems,” Keller told the Houston Chronicle. “In recent years they have had a history of (planetary) missions that did not work.”

Four months ago, word leaked that the Soviet Union lost Phobos 1, the first of the twin, unmanned Mars probes, because of a computer problem.

Phobos 1 and Phobos 2 were launched in July. They were scheduled to orbit Mars on Jan. 29 and then begin circling Phobos in May or April, bombarding the little moon’s pitted surface with laser and particle beams. They also were to deploy landers on Phobos to perform chemical and physical tests of the surface.

“What I have heard is that some of the Phobos 2 instruments allegedly have failed,” Keller said. “How critical the problem is, I don’t know.

“My guess is that they are trying right now to figure out their situation,” said Keller, who has worked closely with the Soviets and their planetary space program.

Another knowledgeable source told the newspaper that “there is no prospect of any science data return” from Phobos 2 and that it is common knowledge among some U.S. scientists familiar with the Phobos 2 problem.

If true, that would be the end of a billion-dollar experiment, the most ambitious of the Soviet Union’s planetary science probes paving the way toward eventual manned exploration of Mars.