High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Phobos (Russian: , Fobos) program was an unmanned space mission consisting of two probes launched by the Soviet Union to study Mars and its moons Phobos and Deimos. Phobos 2 became a Mars orbiter and returned 38 images with a resolution of up to 40 meters. Both probes suffered from critical failures. Phobos 1 and 2 were of a new spacecraft design, succeeding the type used in the Venera planetary missions of 1975-1985, last used during the Vega 1 and Vega 2 missions to comet Halley.