Repeat Mission
In January 2012, scientists and engineers at the Russian Space Research Institute and NPO Lavochkin called for a repeat sample return mission called Fobos-Grunt-2 for launch in 2018 or 2020 which was acknowledged in April 2012 by Roscosmos. Popovkin declared that they would soon attempt to repeat the Fobos-Grunt mission, if an agreement was not reached for Russian co-operation in the European Space Agency's ExoMars program. However, since an agreement was reached for the inclusion of Russia as a full project partner, some instruments originally developed for Fobos-Grunt would be flown in ExoMars. Russia’s financing of ExoMars could be partially covered by insurance payments of 1.2 billion rubles ($40.7 million USD) for the loss of Fobos-Grunt, and reassigning funds for a possible coordination between Mars-NET and ExoMars project.
The Roscosmos-ESA co-operation on ExoMars will thus probably delay any future Russian sample-return mission to Phobos. Although Russian researchers and scientists remain interested in pursuing such a mission in the future, Roscosmos' resources are currently directed to ExoMars and the Luna-Glob mission to the Moon. Roscosmos is also currently studying a proposal for a Mars sample return mission called Mars-Grunt.
Read more about this topic: Fobos-Grunt, Project History
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