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Industry Insiders Foresaw Delay of Russia’s Phobos-Grunt

MOSCOW โ€” After months of insisting that Russiaโ€™s first interplanetary mission in more than a decade would lift off before the end of October, Russian space officials conceded in late September that the launch of Phobos-Grunt would have to wait until 2011 when the next favorable Mars launch opportunity rolls around. To industry insiders and critics of the way the program has been managed, the two-year delay was the foreseeable result of organizational and technical challenges that have dogged the mission from the beginning.

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