UMSF space history photo of the month Options

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

Maybe we could make this a monthly item, in which we could look back at the history of Unmanned Space missions.
For January 2008 I've chosen an image showing the coverage of the Sun by early Pioneer 5-8 spacecraft.
Pioneer 5 to 8, or Pioneer V to VIII using the system of Roman numerals in vogue during the early 1960s for spacecraft designations, were directed towards the Sun along the earth's orbit to monitor solar activity. Pioneer V was launched on 11th March 1960 and provided the very first space weather report 4 to 8 hours before a solar storm hit the Earth.
Some of this Pioneer quartet, Pioneer 6-7-8 even provided updates on our Sun's activity during the early Apollo Moon landings in order to check the damaging potential of solar flares to affect the astronauts.

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

Trying to show another early unmanned spacecraft, I have chosen Pioneer II
The Pioneer 2 spacecraft is prepared atop its third stage with the Able stage visible on the right. The cylinder-shaped Pioneer 2 weighted 39.6 kg and was 74 cm in diameter with a height from cone to cone of about 76 cm. Note the eight small low-thrust solid propellant velocity adjustment rockets mounted on the end of the upper cone in a ring assembly which could be jettisoned after use. It was launched on 8th November 1958 by a Thor-Able launch vehicle on direct ascent to lunar orbit. However, escape velocity was not reached as the third stage failed to ignite and the spacecraft burned up in Earth’s atmosphere after a 412 minutes flight…

[nprev]

Nice! And, I appreciate this, Phil; entirely appropriate to remember how far we've come, and how hard it was to get here...thanks!

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

In late 1959, the 44 kilograms Pioneer 5 is being checked at the launchpad at the then named ETR 17A (Eastern Test Range). Pioneer 5 was intended for Venus flyby but the mission was downgraded to solar orbit in order to demonstrate deep-space probe technology. Launched in March 1960, final telemetry was received in June 1960 from a 36 million km record Earth distance…

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

Just wanted to conclude the early Pioneer series with another photo (before moving on next month to interplanetary spacecraft):
Pioneers 6, 7, 8, and 9 were created to make the first detailed, comprehensive measurements of the solar wind, solar magnetic field and cosmic rays. These spin-stabilised 146 kilograms identical spacecraft acted as the world's first space-based solar weather network, providing practical data on solar storms which impact communications and power on Earth.

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

Time for a Soviet-Russian success in the early days of unmanned spaceflight.
After Luna 1 (January 1959), which was renamed Mechta after it flew by the Moon instead of impacting on it, the Russians launched Luna 2 in September 1959, which became the first human-made object on the Moon.
The photo shows the 278 kg Luna 3, launched in October 1959, which made the first photos of the lunar far-side. The spin-stabilized craft acquired pictures of 70% of the previously unseen lunar far-side (Zond 3 imaged the rest in 1965). Luna 3’s main body was 1.3 meter long and had a diameter of 1.2 meter. Note the solar cells in many locations, in fact Luna 3 was the first Soviet-Russian spacecraft to use solar cells to power equipment and charge batteries. Also visible is the solar sensor and the gas-jet nozzles at the lower part of the lunar probe.

[Phil Stooke]

"After Luna 2 (January 1959), which was renamed Mechta after it flew by the Moon instead of impacting on it, "

Luna 1 was Mechta, which means 'dream'. The first Soviet maps of the farside made by Luna 3 named a dark area near our Mare Ingenii 'More Mechta', "Sea of Mechta" to commemorate it. This is sometimes translated 'Sea of Dreams' but I think that is not really the correct interpretation. That name is still used on Russian maps today, rather than the Latin 'Mare Ingenii' or a Russian translation of that.

Phil

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

celebrating the leap year this 29th Feb 2008 with some photos of Mariner 2 ( Mariner R for Ranger ).
Like the Ranger spacecraft, Mariner 2 consisted of a basic magnesium & aluminium framework topped by an aluminium superstructure with an omni antenna on the top. The 204 kg Mariner 2 was launched on 27 August 1962 onto Type 2 trajectory to our sister planet. It flew by Venus in December 1962 and last contact was made on 3rd January 1963 after 129 days of continuous operations. A record in those days

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

As Mariner 2 was the first successful interplanetary spacecraft, it deserves a second look.
Meanwhile, at least another 21 spacecraft fly by Venus ( including 15 Russian Venera, 5 American spacecraft and European Venus Express )...

[rlorenz]

As Mariner 2 was the first successful interplanetary spacecraft, it deserves a second look.

There's a version of it hanging in the Smithsonian in DC (IIRC I have seen it described as an
EM - although also just described as 'built from test components') Anyway, it was a true
pioneer (!)

http://www.nasm.si.edu/exhibitions/gal100/mariner2.html

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

The 365 kg Ranger spacecraft, which had 6 cameras in a 175 kg TV-unit just above the main body, had a single objective: obtain high resolution photos of the lunar surface in preparation & support of the manned Apollo project. These Ranger spacecraft just snapped photograph while they were crash-diving towards the lunar surface! NASA had its first success with Ranger 7 in July 1964. Later successes with Ranger 8 (February 1965) and Ranger 9 (March 1965) paved the way for the more sophisticated Surveyor spacecraft which soft landed on the Moon, but those are for next time

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

The unmanned Surveyor spacecraft explored the Moon’s equatorial region in preparation of the manned Apollo program. During 1966-1968, NASA launched 7 of these 995 kg three-legged Surveyor spacecraft and yielded 5 outstanding successes. Surveyor 1 made the first soft landing on the Moon in June 1966. Surveyor 3 landed in April 1967 and was visited by the Apollo 12 astronauts in November 1969.
Surveyor 7 (January 1968) was a scientific mission and its TV registered 2 lasers aimed at the spacecraft from observatories in California & Arizona. This demonstrated the feasibility of using lasers to measure the Earth-Moon distance with great accuracy (this was done with laser reflectors left on the lunar surface by the Apollo missions and Soviet-Russian Lunokhod rovers)

This post has been edited by PhilCo126: Mar 29 2008, 05:54 PM

[Gladstoner]

.

[nprev]

...could well be, Gladstoner! The early days of UMSF were (who'd've guessed?) very much like the early days of aviation.

Phil, thanks for that great Surveyor illustration...beautiful!!! One minor typo in your excellent synopsis, though; Surveyor 3 was visited by Apollo 12, not 14.

Conrad & Bean also removed some parts of the spacecraft and returned them to Earth to study the effects of two years of exposure to lunar conditions. One big surprise was the discovery of viable bacteria on these parts (Pseudomonas, I think), still living after two years on the Moon without protection.

[Phil Stooke]

The Surveyor bacterium story is not generaly accepted today. The people who did the work reported that they probably contaminated it. I think one of them wrote in to the Planetary Report about it years ago.

Surveyor descended on its little 'vernier' thrusters, after braking on a big rocket module mounted under the frame. The rocket and tankage were dropped as the verniers came on, and must lie near each landing site. None were seen in Surveyor images, or by the Apollo 12 crew. But if a Google Lunar X Prize rover were to visit a Surveyor site it might have a chance to search for it.

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

Re: the Pioneer 5 image.

That's quite a Clean Room they've got going there. Just finished milking the cows by the look of it.

Phil

[imipak]

That's quite a Clean Room they've got going there. Just finished milking the cows by the look of it.

I love the dustbin in the background of the Pioneer 2 image (post #2). In a parallel universe where NASA was British, the engineers are smoking pipes... I suppose the ashtray must be just out of shot.

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

Thanks for pointing out the typo, Apollo 12 indeed: NASA SP-184 & SP-284
http://ares.jsc.nasa.gov/HumanExplore/Expl...Part1/Surv3.htm

[dvandorn]

Surveyor descended on its little 'vernier' thrusters, after braking on a big rocket module mounted under the frame. The rocket and tankage were dropped as the verniers came on, and must lie near each landing site. None were seen in Surveyor images, or by the Apollo 12 crew. But if a Google Lunar X Prize rover were to visit a Surveyor site it might have a chance to search for it.

As highly as I regard your work, Phil, this statement is a teeny-tiny bit misleading. Surveyor's main descent engine was a solid rocket motor; it consisted of little more than a basketball-sized sphere, which held the solid fuel, and a nozzle. After burnout, which occurred about a km over the surface and at a speed of about 100 mph, Surveyor free-fell for a few seconds and then the verniers started up, at which point the descent motor was dropped. The combination of the vernier ignition and descent motor jettison gave maximum separation velocity between lander and motor.

I guess I just would never consider the sphere that held the solid fuel "tankage," just as I would never consider the length of a Shuttle SRB a tank. With solid fuel motors, the device that holds the fuel is more often called a casing than a tank...

I'd change the statement to "the burned-out descent motor casing and its nozzle were dropped," with this kind of technology.

I also have to correct another possible mis-speak -- Philco says "Surveyor 1 made the first soft landing on the Moon in June 1966." In point of fact, it made the first lunar soft landing in the Surveyor program. The first "soft" landing (in which an instrument package survived and sent back images and data from the surface) was, of course, made by Luna 9 several months prior to Surveyor 1's achievement.

-the other Doug

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

Doug, the 58 cm diameter spheroidal probe Luna 9 "landed" on the Moon in February 1966 and this capsule weighted 100 kg.
It sat ontop the 1440 kg main bus and was ejected up & sideways by springs, the main bus impacted onto the lunar surface... is there somewhere an official definiton of "soft" landing?
Next month's photo = Mariner 4

[Phil Stooke]

Quite right, Doug. I had only just got out of bed. Don't tell my wife the first thing I did was check UMSF.

Phil

[dvandorn]

Doug, the 58 cm diameter spheroidal probe Luna 9 "landed" on the Moon in February 1966 and this capsule weighted 100 kg.
It sat ontop the 1440 kg main bus and was ejected up & sideways by springs, the main bus impacted onto the lunar surface... is there somewhere an official definiton of "soft" landing?
Next month's photo = Mariner 4

Well -- Pathfinder was dropped onto Mars from about 100 meters and bounced up half a km on its first bounce, and they called that a soft landing...

There was an attempt to define such things as the Mars airbag systems, the early Luna landers (which also used airbags) and the attempted-but-never-successful balsawood-packed Ranger surface instrument packages as "hard survivable landers," but the concept never took solid hold. Any system that delivers a reasonably complex instrument package to the surface of a planet seems to be considered a soft landing system, these days. (I would argue that penetrators are in a special class of their own, neither soft landers nor padded/bagged/protected survivable landers.)

-the other Doug

[djellison]

Well -- Pathfinder was dropped onto Mars from about 100 meters and bounced up half a km on its first bounce, and they called that a soft landing...

The bridle was cut 21.5 m above the ground and impacted at a velocity of 16 m/s (14 m/s vertical and 12 m/s horizontal). It bounced about 12 m.

(paraphrased from http://burro.astr.cwru.edu/stu/advanced/20...pathfinder.html )

Doug

[dvandorn]

Really? I clearly recall a much higher bounce estimate at the time of the landing, and a somewhat higher release point...

Perhaps they refined their estimates after the first reports that were reported at the time of the landing.

-the other Doug

[DDAVIS]

Surveyor 7 (January 1968) was a scientific mission and its TV registered 2 lasers aimed at the spacecraft from observatories in California & Arizona.
I have seen a reproduction of that photo, but the 'laser' specks on the night side of Earth appeared to be retouched onto the photo in the version I saw. Is there an original image of this experiment in existance showing their actual brightnesses?

Don

[edstrick]

There used to be a distinction between hard and soft landing and it's certainly valid. A "hard lander" is one that does a controlled crash landing and survives. Even at low speed, like the Venera 7 and 8 landing spheres. A "Soft lander" is one that does not need all-sides protection during landing.. it lands on footpads, like Surveyors, Apollo, Viking, Venera 9 through Vega 2, Hayabusa, NEAR, Huygens, and Phoenix. It's more than just a "landing you can walk away from". Not trivial.

Luna 9 was the first successful landing on the moon. It got the real prize for being first. Surveyor 1 was the first soft landing, a technical quibble, but not a trivial one.

[tedstryk]

There used to be a distinction between hard and soft landing and it's certainly valid. A "hard lander" is one that does a controlled crash landing and survives. Even at low speed, like the Venera 7 and 8 landing spheres. A "Soft lander" is one that does not need all-sides protection during landing.. it lands on footpads, like Surveyors, Apollo, Viking, Venera 9 through Vega 2, Hayabusa, NEAR, Huygens, and Phoenix. It's more than just a "landing you can walk away from". Not trivial.

Luna 9 was the first successful landing on the moon. It got the real prize for being first. Surveyor 1 was the first soft landing, a technical quibble, but not a trivial one.

I don't think it is fair to make this distinction with Venus landers in the same way one does with the moon. I mean, the PVO day probe wasn't intended to land and lasted an hour. Also, Venera 8 was a much softer landing that Venera 7, which hit much harder than it was supposed to do to technical problems that would have killed a lander anywhere else. Landing on Venus is definitely not easy, but it is probably the easiest place to slow down, ignoring Titan for the moment.

Back to the moon, part of the reason that landers like Luna 9 and 13 are often dubbed "soft" landers is because the term "hard lander" is often (mis?) applied to missions such as the Rangers and Luna 2.

[Phil Stooke]

I don't think there should be any distinction, because in principle any combination of methods is possible (was MER hard or soft - ouch!) The only thing that counts is if you survive and transmit afterwards.

Phil

[NGC3314]

The Surveyor bacterium story is not generaly accepted today. The people who did the work reported that they probably contaminated it. I think one of them wrote in to the Planetary Report about it years ago.

Surveyor descended on its little 'vernier' thrusters, after braking on a big rocket module mounted under the frame. The rocket and tankage were dropped as the verniers came on, and must lie near each landing site. None were seen in Surveyor images, or by the Apollo 12 crew. But if a Google Lunar X Prize rover were to visit a Surveyor site it might have a chance to search for it.

Phil

Thanks for that tidbit! Never knew that about Surveyor. And I thought designs for crewed landers (on both sides of the moon race) using such "crasher stages" were unnecessarily risky... But then now we find out that Luna 9 used air bags, so I should cease being surprised about anything from UMSF history. Anybody else hear about the tests carried out during the Salyut program to work out the best way for recoating telescope mirrors in orbit?

[NGC3314]

Surveyor 7 (January 1968) was a scientific mission and its TV registered 2 lasers aimed at the spacecraft from observatories in California & Arizona.
I have seen a reproduction of that photo, but the 'laser' specks on the night side of Earth appeared to be retouched onto the photo in the version I saw. Is there an original image of this experiment in existance showing their actual brightnesses?

Don

The only printed version I can remember seeing was in "Exploring Space with a Camera" (scanned image here. They don't look retouched in my copy, just that the rendering left gaps between scan lines - is this where you saw it?

[peter59]

Surveyor 7 (January 1968) was a scientific mission and its TV registered 2 lasers aimed at the spacecraft from observatories in California & Arizona.
I have seen a reproduction of that photo, but the 'laser' specks on the night side of Earth appeared to be retouched onto the photo in the version I saw. Is there an original image of this experiment in existance showing their actual brightnesses?

Don

I have image of laser beam created by me from the matrix (60 x 60 ? ) of original data.

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

Well, great discussions just because of one photo
Anyway for me MER made a hard landing and when the rover itself rolled of, that was a soft one

[peter59]

Surveyor 7 (January 1968) was a scientific mission and its TV registered 2 lasers aimed at the spacecraft from observatories in California & Arizona.
I have seen a reproduction of that photo, but the 'laser' specks on the night side of Earth appeared to be retouched onto the photo in the version I saw. Is there an original image of this experiment in existance showing their actual brightnesses?

Jan,19, 1968, 08:41:53 GMT

52,51,45,40,45,40,50,44,43,48,40
51,50,50,45,54,39,37,45,40,45,41
47,50,50,46,46,45,39,48,43,47,47
45,40,48,48,43,30,37,42,43,45,44
46,48,48,47,33, 4,16,52,52,47,44
46,37,46,49,25, 0, 0,33,50,46,52
43,45,38,49,43,38,40,51,52,45,51
52,48,41,44,50,53,43,61,42,42,48
49,48,50,49,52,51,55,46,50,52,52
52,62,52,53,45,50,51,50,48,49,55
58,53,59,57,50,50,48,54,48,43,54

Printout of the region around the laser spot of the digitized picture.
The number at each point represents the optical density, on a scale
of 64 gray levels (0 = white, 63 = black). The laser spot is completely
saturated at two point in the picture.

Original image (not very spectacular)
 laser_beam5.bmp ( 363.05K ) Number of downloads: 698


Inverted and stretched image.
 laser_beam6.bmp ( 363.05K ) Number of downloads: 689

[DDAVIS]

The only printed version I can remember seeing was in "Exploring Space with a Camera"-snip- is this where you saw it?
[/quote]

Yes, among others. In 'Exploring Space...' page 80, examining the reproduction on the printed page closely reveals apparent touch up marks, undoubtedly assisting in the presentation of real data but perhaps overly so. Four short vertical marks appear to have been applied to a 'master print' replicated for mass reproduction. One of the marks shows variance from the vertical scan line orientation, and one of them is drawn so as to spill over into the dark gap between the scan lines. What did the reproduction in the Surveyor 7 science report look like?
The National Geographic book 'Man's Conquest of Space' by William R. Shelton, page 134 bears a smaller reproduction of the same photo, with the right hand beam spot further accentuated by extending the rightmost short line.
I can't open the .bmp file on my Mac so I would appreciate seeing the raw data at last!

Don

[tedstryk]

The version I have is in the Surveyor VII television data volume.

[edstrick]

The Surveyor images of the crescent (i think) earth with the laser spots were 600 line analog images. The normal data product was slow-scanned directly onto negative film in a data-recording camera.

On rare occassion, the analog data tapes were played back and digitized for quantitative analysis but these weren't. Images were also scan-converted in not-quite-real time for TV display, as during the Surveyor 1 landing TV coverage.

The Laser experiment image clearly showed lines of a raster image with darker gaps between the lines, the laser spots were very sharp brightness increases on a couple lines, extending across what in digital data would be about 3 pixels along the line.

There were more lasers involved in the test than the two in the image, but cloudy conditions at the telescope sites obliterated any chance of them showing up.

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

While we're talking about Surveyor:

[DDAVIS]

I wonder if a carefully pointed 5 watt green laser would be as visible from the Moon as the lasers used then. There are enough such lasers that a letter or symbol could be arranged for the benefit of future lunar telephoto camaras.
It is also just possible, primarily through the strong Lunar 'back scattering', that a determined mass effort could 'illuminate' the Lunar night side using the thousands of existing brighter than 5mw green lasers carefully pointed at the Moon. An early attempt at this using inferior red lasers of several years ago can be read of here:

http://www.afineline.org/projects/paint.html

-Don

[Tom Tamlyn]

I can't open the .bmp file on my Mac so I would appreciate seeing the raw data at last!

Don,

The utility application Preview opens those files on my Mac.

TTT

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

Photo for April 2008: Mariner IV flyby of Mars:
In November 1964, NASA had 2 Mariner spacecraft ready for a Mars flyby mission. However, the shroud (fairing) on the Mariner III launch vehicle failed and engineers had to rework the Atlas-Agena shroud urgently in order to launch Mariner IV within the Mars-window. The 260 kg Mariner IV was launched on 28th November 1964 and flew by Mars in July 1965, beaming 22 b&w photos back to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
In October 1967, Mariner IV was used for attitude-control tests in support of Mariner V, its twin spacecraft which was modified for a Venus flyby (closest October 1967). Final communications with Mariner IV took place on 21st December 1967…

[DDAVIS]

[quote name='Tom Tamlyn' date='Apr 1 2008, 05:31 PM' post='111702']
Don,

The utility application Preview opens those files on my Mac.

Got it, thanks. I wonder what color the beam(s) would have been, in case I want to animate a re-enactment of this sometime.

Don

[Del Palmer]

I wonder what color the beam(s) would have been, in case I want to animate a re-enactment of this sometime.

They used an Argon ion laser at 514 nm, so that would give you a green beam.

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

Some of the Surveyor NASA-JPL technical reports are listede here: http://www.boggsspace.com/jpl_tech_reports.htm
There's somewhere a NASA technical server but I don't have the URL directly...

[NGC3314]

Some of the Surveyor NASA-JPL technical reports are listede here: http://www.boggsspace.com/jpl_tech_reports.htm
There's somewhere a NASA technical server but I don't have the URL directly...

http://ntrs.nasa.gov turns up several hits on "Surveyor 7 laser". There is a tech report by Jim Brault and S.K. Poultney on the laser illumination experiment (alas not available electronically). Part 2 of the Surveyor 7 Science Report is here as a scanned PDF. (Or maybe not - my PC reports that the file is corrupted, and loading it actually crashes Safari on a Mac. I reported the problem...)

Update an hour later - the file isn't corrupted, it's just 567 Mbytes and upsets these browsers. There is much detail about the laser collimating and pointing systems and observing sessions. A full-page image reproduction has been scanned at such a contrast the I don't see either laser at all.

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

A few good books on Mariner IV:

Mariner Mars 1964 Handbook ( Mariner IV NASA-JPL )
Mariner IV Mission: The pictures of MARS ( General ElectroDynamics Corporation 1965 )
NASA SP-139 : Mariner - Mars 1964 : Final Project Report ( NASA 1967 )
Technical reports: 32-782 (4 parts) , 32-884 (TV experiment 3 parts) , 32-1092 (Superior Conjunction)

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

The 245 kg Mariner 5 was actually built as a backup for the 1964 Mariner 4 Mars flyby mission but after the success of the Mariner 4 mission, it was modified for a Venus flyby mission.
Mariner V was launched on 14th June 1967 and flew by Venus on 19th October 1967…
Radio occultation data from Mariner-5 helped to understand the temperature and pressure data returned by the Soviet-Russian Venera 4 lander which landed a day earlier.
Mariner’s close encounter over the night side and subsequent swing across the terminator towards the Sun altered its trajectory, allowing the determination of the planet’s mass at 81.50% of Earth’s. The operations of Mariner 5 ended on 21st November 1967 when the craft was put in hibernation. Between April and November 1968, NASA tried to reacquire Mariner 5 to continue probing interplanetary conditions… without success.

[edstrick]

At or near the end of the planned period of reacquisition attempts, they DID recover the signal from Mariner 5. They detected carrier wave only, no telemetry, WAY outside expected frequency limits, I think varying irregularly in wavelength, and with signal strength variations indicating the spacecraft was in a slow roll. They were able to get the spacecraft to lock on to an uplink signal, I think, but no response whatever was observed to any commands sent to the spacecraft. Without telemetry and without any signal change in response to commands, they had very little to go on for troubleshooting.

Mariner 5 was in some mechanical equivalent of a "Permanently Vegetative State" and they finally just gave up on it.

The recovery attempts were part of a dual spacecraft solar wind / solar magnetic fields investigation with Mariner 4, back in communication with Earth after being out of telemetry for about a year or more around superior conjunction. During the experiment, both spacecaft were going to be on the same idealized magnetic field spiral carried out from the sun by the solar wind. Mariner 4 did fine, 5 was useless. Mariner 4's attitude control gas ran out at the end of it's extended mission and the spacecraft transmitter was commanded off.

[nprev]

Phil, was Mariner 5 pretty much a backup bus for Mariner Mars 64? Reason I ask is that of course Mariner 3 was supposed to fly with 4 but was lost; seems odd that there would be a third spacecraft held in reserve, esp. because 5 had no camera.

[tedstryk]

Phil, was Mariner 5 pretty much a backup bus for Mariner Mars 64? Reason I ask is that of course Mariner 3 was supposed to fly with 4 but was lost; seems odd that there would be a third spacecraft held in reserve, esp. because 5 had no camera.

Mariner 5 would have had a camera as a Mars mission, but it was determined that that camera would have been relatively useless for a Venus mission, so it was removed, which also allowed the scan platform to be removed. To be clear, they didn't think that pictures of Venus were useless, but they didn't feel the Mariner 4 style camera would be able to take useful pictures. Had Mariner 4 failed, it probably would have been launched as a Mars probe.

[nprev]

Well, they were probably right in that regard. I'm just a bit amazed that the early Mariner bus was that flexible in terms of mission assignments; good design!

[edstrick]

Mariner 5 was an engineering test vehicle for Mariner Mars 1964, but it had not been "abused" during light development and the relevant hardware on it took relatively little effort to refurbish to flight-ready status.

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

The next pair of Mariner spacecraft were the Mariner VI & VII.
Mariner VI was launched on 25th February and flew by Mars on 31st July 1969.
Mariner VII was launched on 27th March and flew by Mars on 5th August 1969.
Both 413 kg spacecraft ( originally Mariner F & G ) were launched with the more powerful Atlas-Centaur rocket combination which permitted extra weight to the spacecraft. At conception, scientists even suggested an atmospheric entry probe but it was rejected on grounds of time & cost.
However, both spacecraft carried a scan platform underneath the main octagonal magnesium body. Among the instruments were wide-angle + narrow-angle television cameras which permitted for the first time to make far-encounter images which were taken with 37 minutes intervals. When these were played back, scientists could see a turning globe with the poles clearly visible.
Mariner VI made 50 far-encounter images and 25 flyby surface photos.
Mariner VII made 93 far-encounter images and 33 flyby surface photos.
However, interesting features weren’t seen until NASA-JPL launched Mariner IX to go in orbit around the red planet in 1971… that’s for next time!

the other Phil

[Phil Stooke]

I like the 1960s laptop.

Phil

[ElkGroveDan]

I like the 1960s laptop.

It was known as the MacBook Anvil.

[ilbasso]

I miss having knobs to turn and switches to throw. Depressing keys all the time is...depressing.

[Phil Stooke]

I know, I know... I mean, picture it... the bolt of lightning strikes the tower, the Professor gazes expectantly at the *thing* on the slab, and Igor lurches over to the desk to press CTRL-L... it just doesn't work.

Phil

[Ken90000]

Secretly, I admire Mariners 6 and 7. To my untrained eye, their images have the quality of a Viking Era image. Likewise, Mariner 7 was the first spacecraft to provide data about another planetary satellite, Phobos. I have searched for information about the demise of these craft? I know they were occulted by the Sun long after their planetary encounter. Does anyone have any information about the last contact with these great travelers and why they were not heard from again.

Thanks

Ken

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

Mariner Mars 1969 in launch configuration ( with thanks to Paolo Ulivi )

[Paolo]

Mariner Mars 1969 in launch configuration ( with thanks to Paolo Ulivi )

Thanks! somehow I can not add attachments to my posts...

[edstrick]

"...the last contact with these great travelers and why they were not heard from again."

Mariners 6 and 7 did not have any significant cruise science capability. Their entire science package were remote sensing experiments located on the spacecrat's scan platform. After Mars encounter, the primary mission concluded with sufficient tape recorder readouts via different telemetry modes etc until they were sure there was nothing more to recover from the data onboard.

So there was very little science to be done during extended missions. There was one engineering experiment done where the midcourse motor was fired and immediately afterwards, the infrared spectrometer was used to examine the spectrum of the dissapating exhaust plume. They did see spectral features, I presume related to hydrazine and ammonia (from hydrazine breakdown). They may have taken some images of black space possibly with a bright star in the camera's view in attempts to diagnoise noise problems with the analog tape recorders (there was oxide crud on the tape heads -- one reason the images are relatively cruddy). Other engineering exercises were performed on the spacecraft.

The missions ended maybe a year after Mars encounter when attitude control nitrogen gas was depleted and I presume transmitters were turned off, as was Mariner 4's. Some documentation on this was in the JPL TR series mission reports, others, on the later extended mission, in JPL reports on Deep Space Network avtivities. You may be able to find them in government document repositories in Engineering Libraries on large university campuses.



I think thwere was some s

[Paolo]

Mariner 5 during ground tests (radiooccultation antenna calibration, I think)

http://i43.servimg.com/u/f43/11/13/59/33/marine10.jpg

[dvandorn]

Does anyone recall whether or not Mariner 5 flew with the same solar wind vanes that Mariner 4 sported? I seem to recall the experiment had very minimal effect on Mariner 4, but Mariner 5 was flying into an area of increased solar wind density. Just wondering if they tried it -- especially since it's pretty obvious in the preceding image that the attach points for the vanes are certainly still there.

-the other Doug

[edstrick]

The vanes were light-sail vanes, they were essentially an engineering experiment.

As I understand, shiny bright metal surfaces get about 10 times the light-sail pressure as solar-wind particle pressure... (somebody correct me if I'm wrong)

My poorly documented understanding is that the vanes were ment to auto-adjust somehow the off-center solar pressure on the not-quite-symmetric spacecraft and so null out light pressure induced attitude drift, thus reducing use of attitude control gas. The vanes apparently were "sticky" and didn't adjust properly and didn't yield the expected benefit.

THEY WERE NOT CARRIED ON MARINER 5.

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

correct, see the rightside picture ontop of page 4 of this topic
the other Phil (waiting for my flight to Phoenix AZ & browsing UMSF)

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

1971: Mariner IX to Mars
The 998 kg (launch weight) (565 kg in orbit) Mariner IX was launched to the red planet Mars on 30th May 1971 and reached the planet on 13th November 1971 becoming the first spacecraft to orbit another planet! Mariner 9’s arrival in orbit was greeted by a planet-wide duststorm, but the orbiter sat out the storm and started to map the planet. In January 1972, the first sections of the 4000 km long & 100 km wide Vallis Marineris rift valley were photographed. The ‘discovery’ of these geological features transformed our view of Mars and scientists regained a strong intrest for the red planet as it could be the place that once harboured life. Mariner 9 performed 698 revolutions during 350 Earth days of operation. After 7330 photos, the mission was over and Mariner 9’s orbit was believed to be stable for half a century, satisfying international planetary quarantine requirements…

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

Well, after Mariner IX comes Mariner X

The 503 kg Mariner 10 spacecraft, launched on 3rd November 1973, was the first to make use of an interplanetary gravitational sling-shot maneuver, using the planet Venus to bend its flight path and bring its perihelion (point closest to the Sun) down to the first rock from the Sun, planet Mercury's orbit. Venus flyby occurred in February 1974 and Mariner 10 flew by Mercury in March + September 1974 and later in March 1975…
Mariner 10 completed one of the most successful planetary explorations: 4 encounters in 13 months!

The other Philip

[Paolo]

That picture in very high resolution, plus others of Mariner 10 can be found here:
http://images.ksc.nasa.gov/photos/1973/cap...C-73P-0539.html
http://images.ksc.nasa.gov/photos/1973/cap...C-73P-0541.html
http://images.ksc.nasa.gov/photos/1973/cap...C-73P-0542.html

[Paolo]

From a contemporary magazine, I have scanned and put on my website http://utenti.lycos.it/paoloulivi/pioneer1.html a sequence of images of the launch of Pioneer 1 in 1958

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

Well, after last month's failure to come up with a 'rare' photograph, I had to do better on Mariner 10: Here's an artist impression of the September 1974 Mercury flyby

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

As a follow-on of the Mariner series, Pioneer F/G were built...
The 260 kg spin-stabilised Pioneer 10 spacecraft established a historic triumph of science and engineering by setting unprecedented flight records. Pioneer 10 not only became the first spacecraft to pass beyond the orbit of Mars, cross the asteroid belt and travel to Jupiter but also became the first spacecraft to leave the solar system and head into interstellar space.

See the Pioneer topics for more info

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

As I already posted the Pioneer 10 photo for September 08, I wanted this time to point out an interesting Blog entry of a guy who found an old NASA-JPL trailer on a dusty lot of grand between Los Angeles & Las Vegas: great " retro space-tech " photos!

http://thisisharrington.com/projects/nasa/index.html

[djellison]

an old NASA-JPL trailer on a dusty lot

Untrue
http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2008/08/...yone_missi.html

Specifically
"This story is completely misleading. I have been in this trailer myself. It is on the grounds of the Owens Valley Radio Observatory, operated by the California Institute of Technology. It is used to control a small radio antenna nearby, and is NOT abandoned."

[jamescanvin]

Indeed. And as for "retro space-tech" it looks a lot more modern than many bits of radio telescope hardware I've seen, much of it still in use!

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

O.K. guys... this means I gave to come up with some real " Retro " Space Technology
What about this IBM 7090 as used by NASA Ames Research and NASA-JPL in the 1960s:

[lyford]

That is so.... beautiful! *sniff* *sniff* I must have something in my eye....

[Tesheiner]

Ah! It reminds me the mainframe existing at our university 'til the 80s; a Borroughs B6700!

[tty]

Ah yes, those were the days. It reminds me of the Swedish Airforce's IBM 7074, which was the first mainframe I worked with. It was pretty old then, but I've heard that when the Airforce bought it they got a real blast about their profligacy from the Department of Finance which was planning to buy a similar machine to cover the needs of the whole Swedish Government, civil and military....

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

Because this month is special (closure of manned spaceflight section) I wanted to post a mixed image:
NASA's Magellan probe to Venus is launched from the cargo bay of Space Shuttle "Atlantis" during STS-30, not the well-known photo but an artist' impression dating from Sep 1988:

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

TelStar 1962, an amazing 77 kg satellite. Since July 1962, Telstar 1 demonstrated transatlantic data, facsimile, voice and television transmissions. It paved the way for commercial satellite utilization and according to the US Space Objects Registry, Telstar 1 was still in orbit as of May 2008...

[PDP8E]

Telstar 1 can still be tracked with a telescope.
Its orbit is something like 900km x 6000km and it varies in brightness from 6th mag to 13th
...on the heavens above website log in and set your location (important), then

• Select a satellite from the database
• put in: Telstar 1
• and then peruse all the 'visible' passes over your house!

[ElkGroveDan]

Does anyone else get the feeling that when commercial orbital flight becomes routine, that some enterprising person is going to start a company to retrieve historical orbital objects like Telstar 1, and not just satellites, but pieces of this and that and then return them to Earth to be auctioned off as collectibles?

EDIT: unmanned of course, else I wouldn't discuss it here

[djellison]

It'd be scientifically interesting. Sort of a VVVVVVVLDEF

And, it would be cool.

[Phil Stooke]

I watched some of the first Telstar transatlantic transmissions. Remember the pop tune named after it?

Regarding recovery of old satellites... the old owners might not consider they have relinquished ownership - better check first. This has been the topic of heated debate on the Google Lunar X-Prize forum, in connection with lunar artifacts. (before that forum got spammed by viagra ads)

Phil

[stevesliva]

Some talk about it here:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23639980/

I was googling "Who owns old satellites?"

Oberg seems to think that it's the original owners, rather than a more maritime free-for-all.

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

Overall, the spin-stabilized satellite measured 88 centimeters as the dimensions were dictated by the limited space in the fairing of NASA’s delta launch vehicle. Telstar 1 communicated through four major ground stations; (1) Andover – Maine USA was the principal ground station for data and tracking operations, (2) Holmdel – New Jersey USA, the “first telephone terminal to outer space” received the data, (3) Goonhilly – England GB, operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation was the international coordinator center and (4) Pleumeur-Boudou – France, a station almost identical to the AT&T facility in Maine. NASA facilities and stations in Italy and Brazil conducted relay communications tests.
Telstar 1 certainly was a beauty:

[Juramike]

My brother's stepfather was the late Jack Olson. He was a visionary designer that developed concepts of space vehicles while working for Boeing. [He is also named as the co-inventor of the Boeing Jetfoil (he designed everything above the waterline).]

Jack was a notorious practical joker - in the mid-60's one of his earliest depictions of a lander on the lunar surface had a subtly disguised bleached-out steer skull in the foreground - this was part of a presentation package that the unknowning head of Boeing Aerospace, Joe Stoner, presented to a Congressional subcommittee.

Among his many concepts, this image is of a Mars habitation colony that was presented to NASA. (Note the "Welcome" mat near the ladder). This was his last space illustration:


At the lower right in the graphic is a very subtle addition (and the link to unmanned spaceflight). If you look below his name, you can see symbols carved into a martian rock. These are the date of the drawing (2-6-1992) in Runic characters. This plays homage to Jack's fascination with Viking runestones in America and also links to the first successful American lander on the Martian surface, named Viking.

-Mike

[EDIT: He was also an aeronautical genius. I was fortunate to go on a multiple bus trip he organized to view the February 26, 1979 total solar eclipse in Washington state. While the rest of the Pacific Northwest was pretty clouded over (quelle surprise), he successfully found a patch of clear weather for our trip based on a meteorological effect called a "wave window" which would make a hole in the cloud in certain areas downwind from a topographic obstacle.]

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

Happy Halloween !!!

[nprev]

GENIUS!!! Thanks, Phil!

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

In fact that's an official NASA-JPL image and yes Saturn's moon Titan looks the most scary

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

For November I have chosen a space observatory photo:
Orbiting Astronomical Observatory (OAO-3), was the third of a series of 4 space observatories. OAO-3, a collaborative effort between NASA and the UK’s Science & Engineering Research council, was launched on 21st August 1972 and carried an X-ray detector built by the University College of London in addition to an 80 cm UV telescope built by Princeton University.
Once successfully in orbit, OAO-3 was renamed Copernicus to mark the 500th anniversary of the birth of Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus. The spacecraft operated until February 1981, and returned high resolution spectra of hundreds of stars along with extensive X-ray observations.

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

This month's photo shows a mockup engineering model of the US Surveyor lunar lander spacecraft.
Surveyor 1 was the first of the series and made the first soft landing on 2nd June 1966 (if You considered the February 1966 landing of the Soviet Luna 9 a hard landing )
The Surveyor 1 had a mass of 995 kg at launch and about 295 kg at lunar landing. The 665 kg Thiokol retro-motor took most of the mass. After it ignited, the spacecraft used a radar altimeter Doppler velocity-sensing (RADVS) system to provide data for vehicle control once the solid motor had been ejected. Surveyor 1 dropped onto the surface just 15 km off target near the crater Flamsteed. The lander was photographed on the surface by Lunar Orbiter 3 in 1967.
Surveyor 3 landed in April 1967 and ws visited by the Apollo 12 in November 1969.
The 1040 kg Surveyor 7 was launched as a dedicated scientific mission, ending the series by soft landing on the Moon in January 1968. The 4 successful Surveyors ( 1 - 3 - 5 - 6 ) had satisfied Apollo requirements in the Moon's equatorial zone and the rest is history ...

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

Surveyor photos continued this month but this time I'll use the Roman numerals in vogue at the time for designations:
While we’re used on seeing high resolution photos of today’s spacecraft’ parts, it’s great to see the same kind of images of older spacecraft. Here’s an example of the footpad of the Surveyor V lunar spacecraft showing the magnet assembly on footpad 2 of the lander.
These footpad magnetic assemblies were attached to footpad 2 of Surveyors V, VI , VII and on footpad 3 of Surveyor VII.. The purpose of the magnet tests was to determine differences in amount of magnetic material in Maria and in the Highlands.
The last of the Surveyors was a dedicated scientific mission and in addition to the magnets on footpads 2 & 3, Surveyor VII had two rectangular horseshoe magnets embedded side by side in the back of the surface sampler door.

[ilbasso]

Here's a photo of the Surveyor ground test article in the Smithsonian's possession. This is how the article was exhibited when the NASM was housed in the Arts and Industries Building in July 1971, when I was a teenage tour guide!

(Click for enlarged view)

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

This artist impression by David Hardy ( who had an exposition at the 2008 IAC in Glasgow ) show Galileo's fly by of Jupiter's moon Io. The whole image looks a bit like a seasons greetings card so fitting for this time of the year...
The 2300 kg (900 kg propellant) Galileo spacecraft was launched from the cargo bay of Shuttle Atlantis in October 1989 during STS-39 mission. By December 1995, the spacecraft arrived in the Jovian system and was in the news during the "Millennium flyby" of the giant gas planet as Cassini-Huygens flew by... NASA engineers decided to send Galileo into Jupiter's atmosphere in order to avoid contamination caused by a crash on one of the Jovian moons. The mission ended into the giant planet on 21st September 2003.
Galileo was the first dual-spin planetary spacecraft...

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

In an effort to "upgrade" this " UMSF photo of the month " topic I would like to share some NASA images for which I don't have any information. Normally old NASA photos on hard KODAK paper have purple color text printed on the back, except some
Does anyone have a clue what these engineers are testing (Photo was taken in 1965):

[djellison]

I don't know what it is - but it

1 - Looks painfull
2 - Looks like it's designed for a small payload fairing - a sounding rocket of some sort?

[jamescanvin]

The Elevation and Azimuth dials in the background make me think that this could be at a ground tracking station.

The copper loops at the top of the device make this look a bit like a receiver/transmitter for a dish antenna.

Maybe.

[djellison]

Ahh - an LNB of some sort (at least, that's what it's called on a Sky TV dish)

[Stu]

It's obviously the NOMAD probe being built...

[stevesliva]

What are the 35's on their badges?

I love the table-- beat to heck with NASA scrawled on it.

I also have to say an open logbook, sliderule, and chunk of stryofoam with discrete components in it is sooo cool.