The Phobos II Incident, 1989 The Phobos II Incident, January 1989 The Phobos program was an unmanned space mission consisting of two probes launched by the Soviet Union to study Mars and its moons Phobos and Deimos. Phobos 2 became a Mars orbiter and returned 38 images with a resolution of up to 40 meters. Both probes suffered from critical failures. Phobos 1 and 2 were of a new spacecraft design, succeeding the type used in the Venera planetary missions of 1975-1985, last used during the Vega 1 and Vega 2 missions to comet Halley. Phobos 1 was launched on July 7, 1988 and Phobos 2 on July 12, 1988, each aboard a Proton-K rocket. They each had a mass of 2600 kg (6220 kg with orbital insertion hardware attached). The program featured co-operation from 14 other nations including Sweden, Switzerland, Austria, France, West Germany, and the United States (who contributed the use of its Deep Space Network for tracking the twin spacecraft). Phobos ll arrived in January 1989 and entered an orbit around Mars as the first phase towards its real destination, a small Martian moon called Phobos. The mission was flawless until the craft aligned itself with the moon. On March 28, 1989 an elliptical object was detected moving towards the satellite seconds before it failed. All indications were that the elliptical object had attacked the satellite which was now dead and left spinning out of control. On March 28, 1989 Tass, the official Soviet news agency stated: "Phobos II failed to communicate with Earth as scheduled after completing an operation yesterday around the Martian moon Phobos. Scientists at mission control have been unable to establish stable radio contact."