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Well, it seems the probe has now missed its ballistic Phobos trajectory insertion window, so the big question now is … what will become of it now?
I have seen talk about a possible Mars fly-by, or even Moon exploration.
As the probe contains live bacteria etc, if this could somehow be returned to Earth safely, at least something of value could be salvaged from this part of its mission scope.
Probe power is still an issue.
I really hope the failure of this probe doesn't influence public opinions about MSL/Curiosity, which is set for launch in about 2 days time. If Nasa has any problems whatsoever, the whole business of planetary exploration could turn very ugly, very quickly.
Let's hope not ! MSL/Curiosity is the most advanced probe ever devised and is set to return a huge amount of information back to us about habitability past and present, on Mars.
Fingers crossed for MSL/CUriosity.
Adios Phobos-Grunt !
Cheers
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