Russian Officials Blame U.S. Radar for Probe's Crash

Ahhh, just like the good ol' days of the space race.

The ongoing saga of Russia's failed Phobos-Grunt probe has taken another twist (so many twists!), with Russian officials now blaming an American radar for the spacecraft's demise. Unnamed sources within Russia's space agency, Ruscosmos, have blamed a radar station in the Marshall Islands for interfering with the probe after it took off in November. The radar station is used to track the path of asteroids traversing the beautiful emptiness that is space, but Ruscosmos appears to be all but blaming that radar for jamming up Phobos-Grunt's communications and navigations systems. The probe was supposed to fly to the Martian moon of Phobos to collect soil samples, but its rockets malfunctioned after leaving Earth's atmosphere. The 14-tonne, $163-million craft got stuck in Earth's orbit, and circled the planet until Sunday when it came crashing back down to Earth, scattering debris off the cast of Chile.