The craft successfully launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on 9 November (Moscow time), and separated from its Zenit–2 booster rocket some 11 minutes later. But its engines failed to kick in, and it’s now trapped in Earth’s orbit.
The Russian space agency says that it now has three days to correct the probe’s fault remotely, turn on its engines and break out of Earth’s orbit, before the £105-million craft’s batteries run dry.
Whoops.