Photos: Zenit rocket lights up the night sky

Russia launched a probe Tuesday to retrieve samples from the Martian moon Phobos and return them to Earth, but the spacecraft was stuck in Earth orbit hours after liftoff due to a glitch that prevented it from aiming toward Mars.

The Phobos-Grunt spacecraft was launched at 2016 GMT (3:16 p.m. EST) aboard a Ukrainian Zenit 2FG rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The probe successfully reached a stable orbit a few minutes later, but the craft's own propulsion system did not ignite as planned to propel itself toward the Red Planet.

Read our full story on the launch.

Credit: Roscosmos