The European Space Agency (ESA), which was able to established a two-way communication with Russia's Phobos-Grunt mission after its successful contact on Tuesday, said it is pursuing strategies to consolidate contact with the mission.

In an update posted on its website, ESA said its 15 m-diameter antenna at Perth, Australia, was again used to contact Russia's Phobos-Grunt spacecraft during the night of Nov. 23-24. A total of five communication passes were available between 20:19 and 04:08 GMT.

Teams working at the Perth station and at ESA's Space Operations Centre, Darmstadt, Germany, were delighted to see a clear signal during the first of the passes.

"The first pass was successful in that the spacecraft's radio downlink was commanded to switch on and telemetry was received," said Wolfgang Hell, ESA's Service Manager for Phobos-Grunt.

Hell said the signals received from Phobos-Grunt during the second contact were much stronger than those initially received on 22 November, in part due to having better knowledge of the spacecraft's orbital position. Hell explained that one of the two low-gain antennas on Phobos-Grunt was oriented toward Perth, thus, communication worked.

The second contact was short and so it was used only to uplink commands while in the next three passes the spacecraft's orbital position changed, and the second, opposing, antenna had to be used, but no signal was received from Phobos-Grunt.

"Our Russian colleagues will use this result for troubleshooting and to plan their commands for us to send tonight," says Manfred Warhaut, ESA's Head of Mission Operations.

Another five communication slots are available during the night of 24-25 November, and the Perth tracking station will again be allocated on a priority basis to Phobos-Grunt, ESA said.

If revived, the Phobos-Grunt mission may still have a short window to journey across space and visit a new target, such as an asteroid, Russian space officials said.

The 13.2-metric ton (29,040-pound) Phobos-Grunt spacecraft, which aimed to bring back soil from the Martian moon, was manufactured by the Moscow-based NPO Lavochkin which specializes in interplanetary vehicles.