Russia to spend almost $15 million on preparing and launching ExoMars mission

MOSCOW, May 4. /TASS/. The Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) plans to launch a new sample soil expedition to Mars’ satellite Phobos, according to a draft of Russia's new space program for 2016-2025 unveiled on Monday.

Under the document, the Mars-Grunt (Soil) expedition is planned for 2024 to deliver soil samples from the Martian moon Phobos to the Earth. The project is estimated at 10.3 billion rubles ($198 million).

This sum is twice as large as the amount stipulated in the draft federal space program prepared last year.

Roscosmos plans a new interplanetary expedition after a failure of its previous Phobos mission.