Phobos-Grunt Mars probe falls into Pacific Ocean

Russian space agency had previously said that the stricken planetary rocket was most likely to fall into the Atlantic

Debris from a failed Russian spacecraft fell into the Pacific Ocean far off Chile on Sunday, the state-run RIA news agency has quoted a Russian military official as saying.

Pieces of the Phobos-Grunt craft, which never made it out of orbit after its launch on a mission to probe the Martian moon Phobos, fell into the sea 775 miles (1,250 km) west of the coastal island of Wellington, aerospace defence forces spokesman Colonel Alexei Zolotukhin said.

It was not immediately clear whether all of the debris from the craft fell at that location. Russia's space agency Roscosmos had previously said debris was most likely to fall in the Atlantic Ocean.

Many of the major cities in the world had been waiting to see where the space hardware would fall.

The launcher, the largest planetary rocket built by Roscosmos, was intended to land on Phobos and bring samples back to Earth. The mission also included a Chinese-built orbiter and containers of bacteria to test their survival in space.

The rocket boosters failed to ignite after it had been launched into a parking orbit around Earth in November. Despite repeated attempts to contact it from the ground, Phobos-Grunt remained stuck in orbit and the Russian authorities decided to abandon the mission.