An error leaves Earth orbiting Russian station was to travel to Mars

A bug prevented the Russian interplanetary station Phobos-Grunt threading to Mars, said Tuesday Roscosmos, Russia's space agency.

The engine did not work. There was not first or second on the apparatus, 13.5 tons of mass, which was launched at 21.16 am on Tuesday by a Zenit-2SB rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome Kazakhstan, was in orbit around the Earth .

"The engine did not work. There was no first or second on. This means that the device could not be guided by the stars," said the director of Roscosmos, Vladimir Popovkin, quoted by Interfax news agency.

Popovkin said land specialists know the orbital parameters of the automatic interplanetary station and contacted her.

"It's an unforeseen situation"

"I will not say that (launch) has been a failure. It is an unforeseen situation in which you have to work," said the director of Roscosmos.

He added that specialists have 72 hours to load a new flight program in the central computer of the Phobos-Grunt.

"We have a period of three days, while the batteries work," said Popovkin.

He said the station retains all its fuel , which allows to reprogram the interplanetary station flight, which aims to land on Phobos, one of the two Martian moons, and bring back to Earth samples of their soil.

The project, to come to fruition, will allow the study of the starting material of the solar system and help explain the origin of Phobos and Deimos , the second moon of Mars, as well as other natural satellites in the solar system.