Phobos-Soil (Phobos-Grunt) is a Russian Federal Space Agency (ROSCOSMOS) mission that was proposed by the Council on Space of the Russian Academy of Science (RAS). The Lavochkin Association is the prime contractor for the space segment, and the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IKI RAN) is leading science investigations. ESA provides ground station support under an agreement between with the Russian Federal Space Agency on the ExoMars and Phobos-Soil (Phobos-Grunt) missions.

The science operation plan is based on the long-term plan and the different mission phases. The latter influence the radio visibility, switch-on times and operation modes of the science payloads. The plan is subject to change in case of anomalies or other unpredicted events.

Mid-term plans covering a few weeks will be drafted on the basis of the long-term plan. Short-term plans, which include telecommands sent to scientific payload, will be prepared a week to one day in advance.

A hierarchical multi-level model is used for telemetry processing. Level zero data sets consist of raw telemetry received directly from the spacecraft, access to which is limited to technical staff. Data obtained after processing this telemetry are separated into individual files, which are made available to investigator teams. The next level, lab processing, provides the calibrated data for the instruments.

The last level of processing prepares the data for long term archiving using the PDS4 standard. The calibrated data will have a proprietary duration of 1 year. Data access will be through the SGS or through the Principal Investigators.