Mars 3 (Various Topics Merged) Options

[tedstryk]

On my website sometime back, I added a page on the image fragment sent back by the Mars-3 Lander. I released serveral versions, including the best quality processing using othodox techniques I would use on other images plus colorization here:
http://pages.preferred.com/%7Etedstryk/fragmentc.jpg
However, I released another image, which I called a "What if" image. This image can be seen here http://pages.preferred.com/%7Etedstryk/m3s5b.jpg It was produced via extreme processing of the original data to make a Mars-like scene, but I made it clear on my website it was only a speculative image. I strongly doubt if the raw data even shows Mars at all - it could be all noise. But since this mode of processing looked strangely Viking-like, I figured I would put it on the web. I was warned by several, who said that while fun, some kooks might take it seriously. My response was that I really don't care what kooks think. Then I noticed this web page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_2
They used the overprocessed image. I feel like it is being presented as a true photograph. This is of concern.

[yurdel]

please visit http://mars3.gornai.ru - my attempt of animation Mars-3 mission(in russian)

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[Geert]

please visit http://mars3.oktemlyceum.ru - my attempt of animation Mars-3 mission(in russian)

Very good and as far as I can judge technically correct animation!

You quite often see the mistake that the solid fuel engine on the lander was used for a braking manouevre, which is incorrect, it fired perpendicular to the flight path and thus only decreased the passing distance (from 1500 km to almost zero), you show it correctly in your animation.

Only remark is that you show the parachute separating on firing of the soft landing engines, the way I read the booklet of Perminov ('The difficult road to Mars') and especially the drawing on page 47 it seems to me like the parachute remained attached to the softlandingrocket and the instrument shell (similar to what was done with Pathfinder and MER), after the lander is released the softlandingrocket is shown more or less shooting into the parachute and taking the whole thing away from the lander.

I have been searching through the HiRISE images a lot in the vague hope of finding any sign of Mars 3 or Mars 6 but it's seeking for a needle in a haystack, there are lots of 'suspicious stones' but nothing which really shows hopeful. It's such a big, big, area, I'm afraid we will have to wait until somebody accidentally stumbles over the thing in a hundred years or more, and hopefully you're animation is then still around to show them what they've found!

[tolis]

Hi,

Nice video!

One search method that *might* work for Mars 3 is to scan the area by magnetometer on a near-surface balloon.
Mars 3 landed in an area that we now know is characterised by strong remanent magnetisation. Being made of metal I would imagine that
it has the same effect on magnetic field lines as, say, a submerged submarine has on Earth's magnetic field. Perhaps a balloon-suspended magnetometer
surveying the area at an altitude of a few hundred metres can pick up its signature. This is an involving process to be sure, but
not quite as involving as someone going over the surface with a metal detector.

Tolis.



Mod: no need to quote the whole previous post.

[Geert]

One search method that *might* work for Mars 3 is to scan the area by magnetometer on a near-surface balloon.

I wish somebody came up with the budget to do that

But seriously, the area is tremendously big, those landing coordinates are only very, very, vague. The soviets did not have clear ephemeris data of Mars at the time of the landing, the whole EDL process was completely pre-set and fixed, and the entry was ballistic with no guidance steering or anything. I expect only the latitude is more or less known (given the EDL procedure the lander should end up at a latitude which corresponds with the inclination of the orbit around Mars the mothership ended up in), but longitude is very, very uncertain. It can easily have ended up hundreds of kilometers off target, so even with a balloon you will have a tremendous area to survey...

The amazing fact that we still haven't been able to find the wreckage of MPL (of which we are reasonably certain where it should be..) shows just how difficult it is to find 'lost' spacecraft. Mars 3 and 6 are much smaller, there parachutes are probably (almost?) invisible by now and the craft covered by dust (and more or less resembling an average stone..). And it's not that you don't find anything, if you look in the HiRISE images there are lots and lots of big stones over there, and the more you look the more 'suspicious' objects you start to see.. The frustrating thing is that in the end even HiRISE doesn't have enough resolution to clearly identify a Mars 3/6 sized lander (covered with dust), and if you don't find a very clear sign of a parachute then in the end the only solution would be to go down there yourself to check each and every of those suspicious stones, wish I could...