MARS ATTACK

Russians/Chinese launch Mars moon probe

Russia has launched an audacious bid to scoop up rock and dust samples from the 27km-wide Martian moon Phobos and bring them back to Earth for study.

The mission 'Phobos-Grunt' is significant because it is carrying China's first Mars satellite Yinghuo-1 - a 115kg probe that will be released into orbit around Mars.
Russia is hoping the 11 tonne Phobos-Grunt will finally see it conquer its Martian curse so that about 200g of regolith can be returned to Earth in August 2014.
Potato-shaped Phobos has an extremely low density.
Panspermia
US participation comes in the form of its Living Interplanetar Flight Experiment (LIFE) on Phobos-Grunt.
This package of hardy micro-organisms will make the journeys out and back inside a separate compartment in the return capsule. It includes the bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans, known for its ability to withstand high doses of radiation and the eight-legged tardigrade, a microscopic invertebrate that can survive the space environment.
It will test theories on how living organisms could spread through the Solar System.
Missions to Mars
Of 39 missions listed by JPL 24 are marked as having failed.

UPDATE
False start for Russian Mars probe

Russia's bid for its first interplanetary mission in more than two decades went awry when an unmanned spacecraft failed to take the proper course toward Mars after its launch, officials said.