Craft's loss could boost country's own Mars program

BEIJING - The so-far unsuccessful Russian Mars mission - with a Chinese satellite aboard - may instead boost China's own probe of the Red Planet.

Phobos-Grunt, which is carrying China's first interplanetary satellite Yinghuo-1, was still stranded in its Earth orbit on Friday, after the latest efforts to establish contact with the spacecraft failed.

"It's both regretful and disappointing," said Jiao Weixin, an Earth and space scientist with Peking University. "But the event will help accelerate the country's efforts to carry out deep space exploration independently."