BioPhobos/Anabioz BioPhobos/LIFE (Living Interplanetary Flight Experiment) Mass summary Mission plan Journey The spacecraft's journey to Mars would take about ten months. After arriving in Mars orbit, the main propulsion unit and the transfer truss would separate and the Chinese Mars orbiter would be released. Fobos-Grunt would then spend several months studying the planet and its moons from orbit, before landing on Phobos. It was imperative to prevent the introduction to Mars of contaminants from Earth; according to Fobos-Grunt Chief Designer Maksim Martynov, the probability of the probe accidentally reaching the surface of Mars was much lower than the maximum specified for Category III missions, the type assigned to Fobos-Grunt and defined in COSPAR's planetary protection policy (in accordance with Article IX of the Outer Space Treaty). On Phobos The planned landing site at Phobos was a region from 5°S to 5°N, 230° to 235°E. Soil sample collection would begin immediately after the lander touched down on Phobos, with collection lasting 2–7 days. An emergency mode existed for the case of communications breakdown, which enabled the lander to automatically launch the return rocket to deliver the samples to Earth. A robotic arm would have collected samples up to in diameter. At the end of the arm was a pipe-shaped tool which split to form a claw. The tool contained a piston which would have pushed the sample into a cylindrical container. A light-sensitive photo-diode would have confirmed whether material collection was successful and also allowed visual inspection of the digging area. The sample extraction device would have performed 15 to 20 scoops yielding a total of of soil. The samples would be loaded into a capsule which would then be moved inside a special pipeline into the descent module by inflating an elastic bag within the pipe with gas. Because the characteristics of Phobos soil are uncertain, the lander included another soil-extraction device, a Polish-built drill, which would have been used in case the soil turned out to be too rocky for the main scooping device. After the departure of the return stage, the lander's experiments would have continued in situ on Phobos' surface for a year. To conserve power, mission control would have turned these on and off in a precise sequence. The robotic arm would have placed more samples in a chamber that would heat it and analyze its emission spectra. This analysis might have been able to determine