Onboard the Phobos-Grunt probe is an experiment acronymed LIFE for
Living Interplanetary Flight Experiment. A variety of microbes will be
placed inside the canister to see if they can survive the 34-month
journey through deep space to Mars and back.
To quote:
“The journey will be a test of one aspect of the “transpermia†hypothesis –- the possibility that life can travel from planet to planet inside rocks blasted off one planetary surface by impact, to land on another planetary surface. For example, if a rock on Earth contained life and were blasted off Earth, could it survive until it reached Mars? Or, if life existed on Mars, could it have been transported to Earth? The Planetary Society experiment will test the ability of life to survive the interplanetary voyage by flying organisms for several years through interplanetary space in a simulated meteoroid.â€
More information may be found here, where I got the quote from:
http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/life/
Space/Science » in reply to Phobos-Grunt may be the 'first' spacecraft to return martian surface samples.
And P-G will deliberately take some microbes on the trip to Mars and back