Wendy Zukerman, reporter
Fragments of Russia's doomed Phobos-Grunt probe crashed into the Pacific Ocean last night.
The probe's mission was to return with samples from Mars's largest moon Phobos, but when its launch rocket machinery went awry on 8 November, Phobos-Grunt became marooned in Earth's orbit, destined to crash back home.
Fragments from the beleaguered probe were predicted to land in the Atlantic Ocean or possibly South America over the weekend.
Last night, Alexei Zolotukhin of Russia's defence ministry told Russian news agency RIA Novosti that Phobos-Grunt fragments had crashed in the Pacific Ocean, 1250 kilometres to the west of Wellington Island in southern Chile.
They are thought to have hit at about 17:45 GMT. AFP reports:
"Star-gazers reported the gold-coloured vessel emitting a bright orange glow as it traversed the globe in an eastward direction between London to the north and New Zealand to the south."
The cause of the probe's problems is still unknown. Last week, Vladimir Popovkin, the head of Russia's space agency, alluded to sabotage. The UK Space Agency has blamed a fault with the onboard scheduling of the probe's autonomous firing system.
Recently, the Russian space programme has been plagued by a series of embarrassing mishaps. In August, an uncrewed Russian supply ship bound for the International Space Station crashed in Siberia. According to AFP, the country has lost three navigation satellites, an advanced military satellite and a telecommunications satellite in the past year.
Meanwhile NASA's Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) and the German ROSAT telescope crashed to Earth towards the end of last year. Both prompted fears that parts might survive re-entry, but neither is reported to have caused damage or injury.
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