Science. It works.

This is the Russian craft Phobos-Grunt, and was headed for Phobos, one of the Martian moons (it has two). It ran into trouble soon after it was launched in November, when its rockets failed to lift it out of low Earth orbit. The Russian officials from Roscosmos (the Russian space agency) are blaming an antisatellite weapon!! Whose weapon? They haven’t said….

This marks a $160 million failure, and Russia has not succeeded in sending a spacecraft to Mars since the 1980s.  Debris could rain down this weekend or early next week from the failed satellite onto populated areas, but will most likely hit an ocean somewhere. Stay inside!