The Phobos-Grunt space probe, which has been stranded in orbit since its launch on November 8. - Photo by AP

PARIS: A European tracking station in western Australia has “established contact” with Russia's Phobos-Grunt space probe, which has been stranded in orbit since its launch on November 8, the European Space Agency (ESA) said on Wednesday.

“ESA teams are working closely with engineers in Russia to determine how best to maintain communication with the spacecraft,” it said in a brief announcement on its website.

“More news will follow later,” it said.

The five-billion-ruble mission is one of the most ambitious in the history of Martian exploration.

It is designed to travel to the Martian moon of Phobos, scoop up soil and return the sample to the Earth by 2014.

But mission control lost the radio contact with the craft hours after launch, leaving engineers without telemetry data to figure out where it was.

On Tuesday, Russia's space agency had said it saw “little chance” of saving the 13.5-tonne probe.

In Moscow, the Russian space agency Roskosmos confirmed the report.

It said the Perth station had received a radio signal from Phobos-Grunt during a scheduled monitoring period and European and Russian were “appraising the situation.”