Russia :To continue space exploration

Russia will continue its efforts to explore the outer space despite the Mars mission failure last week, said Russia's Federal Space Agency Roscosmos on Monday. "Space is a complicated thing, so any situation might happen there," Roscosmos chief Vladimir Popovkin told reporters at Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, adding that Russia will revise its federal space program to increase the share of scientific and applied space projects. He said that the attempts to revive the Phobos-Grunt Mars probe would be continued after the space vehicle re-enters atmosphere dense layers in January 2012. The probe was launched last week but failed to reach the planned orbit.Popovkin said that Roscosmos was keeping rebooting the probe's computer constantly although there was no feedback. He admitted that the reason why Phobos-Grunt's booster failed remains unclear. He said that the fuel in the vehicle's tanks would explode and destroy the probe completely during re-entry. According to Roscosmos, only 30 percent of Russian missions to the Mars have been successful, while 50 percent of the U.S. Martian voyages also failed. Popovkin also said that despite the setback, Roscosmos has been building a new-generation spaceship, which could be ready by 2020. The new heavy space vehicle would be lifted to the orbit by Zenit rockets, the same used for the Phobos-Grunt launch.