Phobos 2 Phobos 2 Phobos 2 was the last space probe designed by the Soviet Union. It was designed to explore the moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos. It was launched on 12 July 1988, and entered orbit on 29 January 1989. "Phobos 2" operated nominally throughout its cruise and Mars orbital insertion phases on 29 January 1989, gathering data on the Sun, interplanetary medium, Mars, and Phobos. "Phobos 2" investigated Mars surface and atmosphere and returned 37 images of Phobos with a resolution of up to 40 meters. Shortly before the final phase of the mission, during which the spacecraft was
Phobos (moon) who studied Phobos and people and places from Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels". A number of craters have been named, and are listed in the following table. There is one named regio, "Laputa Regio", and one named planitia, "Lagado Planitia"; both are named after places in "Gulliver's Travels" (the fictional Laputa, a flying island, and Lagado, imaginary capital of the fictional nation Balnibarbi). The only named ridge on Phobos is "Kepler Dorsum", named after the astronomer Johannes Kepler. The orbital motion of Phobos has been intensively studied, making it "the best studied natural satellite in the Solar System" in terms of