A Russian probe on a mission to a moon of Mars Wednesday failed to take its course to the red planet, in a potentially devastating blow to Moscow's hopes of resuming planetary exploration.

The Phobos-Grunt probe blasted off successfully from the Baikonur cosmodrome overnight but did not manage to leave its Earth orbit as planned several hours later to go on its planned trajectory for Mars, the Russian space agency said.

Engineers now have three days to send the probe out to Mars while batteries last. The loss of the probe would be a disaster for Russia, which has not had a single successful planetary mission since the fall of the Soviet Union.

"We have three days while the batteries are still working," said Roscosmos chief Vladimir Popovkin. "I would not say it's a failure. It's a non-standard situation, but it is a working situation."

The hugely ambitious mission aimed to place the craft in orbit around Mars, land a probe on the surface of its largest moon Phobos, scoop up soil and bring the first ever sample of the Martian satellite back to Earth.

The probe continues to orbit Earth and experts now must try to reprogramme it and direct it toward the red planet.

Popovkin said that mission control was aware of the position of the probe in Earth orbit and it still had fuel on board.

But even ahead of launch, Popovkin had admitted the mission was a "risk", saying that 90 percent of the craft consisted of completely new equipment as Russia had done almost nothing in planetary exploration for 20 years.

"The risk of a failure was very high. Unfortunately, the worst predictions have come true," a source in the Russian space industry told the Interfax news agency.

The chances of saving the probe were minimal, added the source, who was not named. "In my opinion it would be a miracle," it added.

Moscow was desperate to show it could be a superpower in space exploration and was still inspired by the daring spirit of first man in space Yuri Gagarin, in the year it celebrated the 50th anniversary of his historic voyage.

But Phobos-Grunt was haunted by the apparent jinx of the Soviet Union and Russia's past botched attempts to explore Mars and its two moons.

The Soviet Union sent up a string of probes but most failed in their missions, at a time when NASA was able to impress the world with the stunning images of Mars from its successful Mariner and Viking probes.

Post-Soviet Russia endured one of its most humiliating space failures in November 1996 when its Mars-96 probe broke up after launch in a disaster that appeared to symbolise the disintegration of the Russian space programme.

Stung by that catastrophe, Russia has not attempted a single planetary mission until now, leaving solar system exploration the preserve of NASA which has sent probes out to the furthest-flung planets of the solar system.

Moscow's last successful planetary missions were the Vega 1 and 2 probes of 1986 in the Soviet era which explored Venus and Halley's Comet.

If all still goes to plan, Phobos-Grunt would reach Mars next year and then deploy its lander for Phobos in 2013, scooping a chunk of its surface before returning the sample back to Earth in August 2014.

In a landmark space cooperation between Moscow and Beijing, the probe is also expected to deploy a Chinese satellite, Yinghuo-1, which will go into orbit around Mars and observe the planet itself.

Phobos, which orbits Mars at a radius of just under 10,000 kilometres, is believed to be the closest moon to any planet in the solar system and scientists hope it will reveal secrets about the origins of the planets.

The voyage also comes as the world's space powers are showing renewed interest in the possibility of sending a man to Mars in the next decades, possibly in the 2030s.

earlier related report
Phobos-Grunt in safe mode, Earth escape booster fails
Russia's Phobos-Grunt space probe has failed to take its planned trajectory towards Mars and is stuck in an Earth orbit, the space agency said, adding it now had three days to try to fix the problem.

"We have three days while the batteries are still working," said Roscosmos chief Vladimir Popovkin. "I would not say it's a failure. It's a non-standard situation, but it is a working situation."

The Phobos-Grunt probe blasted-off just after midnight Moscow time (2016 GMT Tuesday) from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, in its first planetary mission since the 1996 Mars-96 probe which crashed after launch.

The hugely ambitious mission aimed to place the craft in orbit around Mars, land a probe on the surface of its largest moon Phobos, scoop up soil and bring the first ever sample of the Martian satellite back to Earth.

The launch itself went smoothly but the craft then failed to leave Earth's orbit on its journey to Mars, a manoeuvre that had been planned to take place around five hours after blast-off.

"It looks like the engine system has not worked," Popovkin said. "It means that it did not determine orientation on stars."

The probe continues to orbit Earth and experts have three days to try to reprogramme it and direct it toward the red planet.

The project Phobos-Grunt is of huge importance for the Russian programme as the country tries to reemerge as a space superpower with planetary missions capable of rivalling those of NASA.

Popovkin said that mission control was aware of the position of the probe in Earth orbit and it still had fuel on board.

earlier related report
Russian craft embarks on voyage to Mars moon
A Russian probe on Wednesday set off on a three year return mission to Mars that aims to bring the first sample of a Martian moon back to Earth and re-establish Moscow as a power in planetary exploration. The Phobos-Grunt probe blasted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on a Zenit-2SB rocket in what Russia hopes will be its first successful planetary mission since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The hugely ambitious mission aims to place the craft in orbit around Mars, land a probe on the surface of its largest moon Phobos, scoop up a soil sample and then bring the first ever sample of the Martian satellite back to Earth.

The initial stages of the spectacular night launch went smoothly, mission control said in a live relay provided by the Russian space agency Roscosmos.

The probe went into an initial Earth orbit from which it will start its route to Mars in the next hours.

"We know that it is a risk," admitted Roscosmos head Vladimir Popovkin, saying that 90 percent of the craft consists of completely new equipment as Russia had done almost nothing in this field for 20 years.

"Some 700 tonnes are going to lift off from the Earth but we are going to return a 50 gram sample" he added, in comments run by the Interfax news agency.

Moscow is desperate to show it can be a superpower in space exploration and is still inspired by the daring spirit of first man in space Yuri Gagarin, in the year it celebrated the 50th anniversary of his historic voyage.

But Phobos-Grunt will have to overcome the apparent jinx of the Soviet Union and Russia's botched attempts to explore Mars and its two moons.

The USSR sent up a string of probes to the Red Planet but most failed in their missions, at a time when NASA was able to impress the world with the stunning images from its successful Mariner and Viking probes.

Post Soviet Russia endured one of its most humiliating space failures in November 1996 when its Mars-96 probe broke up after launch in a disaster that appeared to symbolise the disintegration of the Russian space programme.

Stung by that catastrophe, Russia has not attempted a single planetary mission until now, leaving solar system exploration the preserve of NASA which has sent probes out to the furthest-flung planets of the solar system.

Moscow's last successful planetary mission were the Vega 1 and 2 probes of 1986 in the Soviet era which explored Venus and Halley's Comet.

If all goes to plan, Phobos-Grunt should reach Mars next year and then deploy its lander for Phobos in 2013, scooping a chunk of its surface before returning the sample back to Earth in August 2014.

In a landmark space cooperation between Moscow and Beijing, the probe is also expected to deploy a Chinese satellite, Yinghuo-1, which will go into orbit around Mars and observe the planet itself.

Phobos, which orbits Mars at a radius of just under 10,000 kilometres, is believed to be the closest moon to any planet in the solar system and scientists hope it will reveal secrets about the origins of the planets.

Phobos and the other Martian moon Deimos are relatively small, irregularly shaped rocky bodies that scientists believe still carry traces of the earliest stages of formation of the solar system.

The voyage also comes as the world's space powers are showing renewed interest in the possibility of sending a man to Mars in the next decades, possibly in the 2030s.

Last week six men emerged from 520 days in isolation in Moscow after an unprecedented experiment that attempted to test the psychological and physiological effects of a return trip to Mars.

Russia is planning an unmanned mission to the moonm a programme called Luna-Glob, in 2014 and may in the 2020s send a probe to Jupiter's moon Europa which is seen as one of the likeliest places for hosting life in the solar system.