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Russian experiment to go to Mars on US spacecraft
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    • MOSCOW (AFP) Dec 16, 2004
     Russia intends to send a neutron gun to Mars aboard a US space mission scheduled to be launched in 2009, space scientist Igor Mitrofanov said Thursday.

    The plutonium-powered neutron emitter will be able to probe the Martian soil to a depth of one meter (three feet), said Mitrofanov, laboratory head at the Institute of Space Studies of the Russian academy of sciences.

    The device, which will be carried on the National Aeronautics and Space Adminstration's Mars Science Laboratory, will analyze the composition of the soil for the duration of two earth years and also seek the presence of water.




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