Posted on 10/04/2016 5:42:13 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Now’s a good time to look at the challenges in getting a lander to Mars, and also to look back at the many failed attempts.
...
USSR sent several probes to Mars starting back in the 1960s. They made their first attempt in 1962, but that mission failed to launch...
Then in 1971, the Soviets sent a pair of probes to Mars called Mars 2 and Mars 3. They were both orbiters with detachable landers destined for the Martian surface. The fate of Mars 2 and Mars 3 provides other illustrative examples of the challenges in getting to Mars.
Mars 2 separated from its orbiter successfully, but crashed into the surface and was destroyed. The crash was likely caused by its angle of descent, which was too steep. This interrupted the descent sequence, which meant the parachute failed to deploy. So Mars 2 has the dubious distinction of being the first man-made object to reach Mars.
Mars 3 was exactly the same as Mars 2. The Soviets liked to do missions in pairs back then, for redundancy. Mars 3 separated from its orbiter and headed for the Martian surface, and through a combination of aerodynamic breaking, rockets, and parachutes, it became the first craft to make a soft landing on Mars....
But after only 14.5 seconds of data transmission, it went quiet and was never heard from again. The cause was likely an intense dust storm. In an odd turn of events, NASA’s Mariner 9 orbiter reached Mars only days before Mars 2 and 3, becoming the first spacecraft to orbit another planet. It captured images of the planet-concealing dust storms, above which only the volcanic Olympus Mons could be seen. These images provided an explanation for the failure of Mars 3.
(Excerpt) Read more at universetoday.com ...
So the Martians stirred up a sandstorm to conceal the surface from Mariner 9, shot down Mars 2. They didn’t expect a second landing attempt that soon after, but dealt with Mars 3 when it reached the ground?
The problem with landing on Mars is simply not having a plan and execution for all unknown variables involved.
Either take twice as long as possible by beginning to slow down the ship halfway through the mission, or coming up with some clever scheme to get the ship back down to 0 MPH.
Currently, Mars is 101.4 million miles away and receding. That means they won’t know if it landed safely until about nine minutes afterward.
http://www.wolframalpha.com/widgets/view.jsp?id=41c70f85673f05a39dbc0d14bda71f7e
Well, something had to keep cleaning the camera lenses on the Rovers, and keeping them running well past their expiration dates.
Got excited, thought it was an article about the designer. Carry on.........
Nice!
(Darren McGavin rocked)
He was a really good actor.
Darren will always be Karl Kolchak to me. He was Oscar Goldman in the 6 Million Dollar Man pilot and I think I would have liked him better than Richard Anderson. Nothing against Richard at all.
At a recent Rifftracks event, they played some short educational or training film with him in it. One of his early jobs. It wasn’t too painful.
When we get to Pluto we may find O’s real BC
doubt it
They don’t mention in the article, but about 2/3rds of the attempts at going to Mars ended in failure. That’s way higher than any other space probes we’ve sent to other planets in our solar system. They call it the Mars Curse. I’m of the opinion much of it is caused by sabotage.
http://www.universetoday.com/13267/the-mars-curse-why-have-so-many-missions-failed/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_of_Mars
With today’s launch, Europe and Russia seek to break the Mars “curse”
14MAR2016
http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/03/with-todays-launch-europe-and-russia-seek-to-break-the-mars-curse/
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.