Russia has launched an audacious bid to scoop up rock and dust samples from the Martian moon Phobos and bring them back to Earth for study.

The dusty debris should provide fresh insights into the origin of the 27km-wide moon that many scientists suspect may actually be a captured asteroid（小行星） .

The mission is called Phobos-Grunt - "grunt" means "soil" in Russian.

Shortly after taking off however, there were reports that the spacecraft had veered（转向） off course.

The Russian space agency said an engine designed to keep the probe on track failed to start, according to Russia's Interfax news agency.

But there are hopes the rocket can still be brought back on course.

The venture is also significant because it is carrying China's first Mars satellite.

Yinghuo-1 is a 115kg probe that will ride piggyback（在背肩上） and be released into an observation orbit around the Red Planet.

Torrid history

The craft lifted off from Baikonur cosmodrome（航天站） in Kazakhstan on a Zenit-2SB rocket at 00:16 local time on Wednesday (20:16 GMT Tuesday).

The moon samples could be back on Earth in 33 months' time.

Russia is hoping Phobos-Grunt will finally see it conquer its Martian curse.

Moscow has despatched（派遣，发送） a total of 16 missions to the Red Planet since the 1960s. None has successfully completed its goals, with the most recent endeavour - the sophisticated Mars-96 spacecraft - being destroyed in a failed launch.

Lead scientist at Moscow's Space Research Institute, Alexander Zakharov, said: "We haven't had a successful interplanetary expedition for over 15 years.

"In that time, the people, the technology, everything has changed. It's all new for us; in many ways we are working from scratch."

Phobos-Grunt is a hefty spacecraft, requiring several elements to complete the tasks of landing on the moon, picking up the samples and then despatching them home.

If you include the cruise stage (and all its fuel) that will take Phobos-Grunt and Yinghuo-1 out to Mars, the total launch mass for the mission is more than 11 tonnes.

Phobos-Grunt is scheduled to reach Mars next September.

After dumping its cruise stage and releasing Yinghuo-1, the main spacecraft will manoeuvr（诱使，操纵）itself into position to land on Phobos.