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Cryosat Mission Feared Lost
general
post Oct 8 2005, 06:15 PM
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4319596.stm

Mission control at ESA is growing increasingly concerned about the fate of Europe's ice monitoring spacecraft, Cryosat.

The Cryosat spacecraft was launched at 1902 local time today, Oct 8, from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia, but mission controllers have failed to receive a signal from the spacecraft.
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Guest_BruceMoomaw_*
post Oct 16 2005, 12:12 AM
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The report (V.G. Perminov, "The Difficult Road to Mars", 1999) doesn't mention helium -- but it does say: "Suddenly, during testing of the power system, the onboard blocks started to fail. Analysis showed thqat in all cases the power system malfunctioned because of a failure of the 2T312 transistor, which was fabricated at the Voronezhskiy plant. An interministry commission carefully analyzed this problem and came to the conclusion that the reason for the transistors' failure was intercrystalline corrosion in the area of the transistor lead.

"To save gold resources, some 'smart person' suggested that the gold leads be replaced by aluminum ones. The necessary tests were not made. And so 2 yeasrs later, this suggestion caused major trouble. The only way to remedy the situation was to replace the flawed transistors with ones fabricated according to the old technology."

Since this would have taken at least 6 months, and studies showed a 50-50 chance that any craft carrying the transistors would make it to Mars before they started to fail, the Kremlin decided to gamble on flying the four 1973 Mars craft in the hope that they could pull off a Mars landing before the Vikings got there. But three of the four craft malfunctioned en route -- Mars 4 faiiled to fire its retrorocket (although it did snatch some photos), Mars 7's lander failed to fire its trajectory-change rocket after ejection, and Mars 6 totally lost its radio transmission system only 2 months out. It neverthless carried out the remainder of its mission automatically, but it's still not known why the lander lost contact virtually at the moment of landing.

By the way, Perminov also reveals that the crash of the Mars 2 lander -- the first man-made object ever to hit the planet -- occurred not because of any onboard failure, but because the Mars ephemeris data programmed into Mars 2's autonomous navigation system for the final midcourse maneuver was slightly inaccurate, so that the lander entered at too steep a trajectory. He's still a little bitter at the US not providing the USSR with the better ephemerides they already had (which occurred only a year later, in exchange for the Soviets releasing more of their data from the Veneras). He also thinks that the post-landing Mars 3 failure may have been due to a static discharge from the massive ongoing dust storm.
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ljk4-1
post Oct 16 2005, 02:51 PM
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QUOTE (BruceMoomaw @ Oct 15 2005, 07:12 PM)
Since this would have taken at least 6 months, and studies showed a 50-50 chance that any craft carrying the transistors would make it to Mars before they started to fail, the Kremlin decided to gamble on flying the four 1973 Mars craft in the hope that they could pull off a Mars landing before the Vikings got there.  But three of the four craft malfunctioned en route -- Mars 4 faiiled to fire its retrorocket (although it did snatch some photos), Mars 7's lander failed to fire its trajectory-change rocket after ejection, and Mars 6 totally lost its radio transmission system only 2 months out.  It neverthless carried out the remainder of its mission automatically, but it's still not known why the lander lost contact virtually at the moment of landing.
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Jonathan McDowell told me that Mars 6 came down at too fast a speed on very rough terrain, which could certainly explain the sudden lost of contact.

http://www.planet4589.org/space/space.html

The estimated impact speed was 61 meters per second.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_2

So, if the Soviets had not screwed up on this technical point, perhaps the first transmissions from the Martian surface would not have been the Vikings.

I still hope some day the Mars 2, 3, and 6 landing/crash sites are found and investigated.


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and feel as if I had done some wrong, and it is hard to forget the ugly circumstance.
I see that such intercourse long continued would make one thoroughly prosaic, hard,
and coarse. But the longest intercourse with Nature, though in her rudest moods, does
not thus harden and make coarse. A hard, sensible man whom we liken to a rock is
indeed much harder than a rock. From hard, coarse, insensible men with whom I have
no sympathy, I go to commune with the rocks, whose hearts are comparatively soft."

- Henry David Thoreau, November 15, 1853

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Posts in this topic
- general   Cryosat Mission Feared Lost   Oct 8 2005, 06:15 PM
- - hal_9000   I never trusted in new Russians vehicles...   Oct 8 2005, 07:15 PM
|- - dilo   QUOTE (hal_9000 @ Oct 8 2005, 07:15 PM)I neve...   Oct 8 2005, 08:09 PM
|- - OWW   QUOTE (dilo @ Oct 8 2005, 08:09 PM)I know tha...   Oct 8 2005, 08:38 PM
||- - Rakhir   QUOTE (OWW @ Oct 8 2005, 10:38 PM)A Molnya ro...   Oct 9 2005, 12:32 PM
||- - OWW   QUOTE (Rakhir @ Oct 9 2005, 12:32 PM)Actually...   Oct 19 2005, 12:00 PM
|- - Rakhir   QUOTE (dilo @ Oct 8 2005, 10:09 PM)I know tha...   Oct 9 2005, 12:22 PM
- - RNeuhaus   I am afraid it would be alike to ones failed launc...   Oct 8 2005, 07:22 PM
- - BruceMoomaw   The Russians have now confirmed that its upper sta...   Oct 8 2005, 08:27 PM
|- - ugordan   QUOTE (BruceMoomaw @ Oct 8 2005, 10:27 PM)The...   Oct 8 2005, 08:50 PM
- - general   Two days ago, another Russian lauch failed: http:/...   Oct 8 2005, 08:58 PM
|- - Bob Shaw   QUOTE (general @ Oct 8 2005, 09:58 PM)Two day...   Oct 8 2005, 09:49 PM
|- - blobrana   An agency official said experts could not establis...   Oct 8 2005, 11:41 PM
- - hal_9000   Russians should apply more technology in its vehic...   Oct 8 2005, 09:02 PM
|- - Tesheiner   QUOTE (hal_9000 @ Oct 8 2005, 11:02 PM)Russia...   Oct 10 2005, 12:35 PM
|- - ljk4-1   QUOTE (Tesheiner @ Oct 10 2005, 07:35 AM)IMHO...   Oct 10 2005, 02:51 PM
|- - ljk4-1   Volker Liebig, ESA’s Director of Earth Observation...   Oct 10 2005, 03:16 PM
|- - tty   QUOTE (ljk4-1 @ Oct 10 2005, 04:51 PM)Ru...   Oct 10 2005, 04:37 PM
|- - ugordan   QUOTE (tty @ Oct 10 2005, 06:37 PM)Actually i...   Oct 11 2005, 12:21 PM
|- - ljk4-1   QUOTE (ugordan @ Oct 11 2005, 07:21 AM)The ru...   Oct 11 2005, 02:25 PM
- - Adam   Well it's dead : http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SE...   Oct 8 2005, 09:43 PM
- - hal_9000   ESA NEWS CryoSat Mission lost due to launch failur...   Oct 8 2005, 09:46 PM
|- - paxdan   oh bollocks   Oct 8 2005, 09:49 PM
- - BruceMoomaw   QUOTE (ugordan @ Oct 8 2005, 08:50 PM)Rest as...   Oct 9 2005, 02:10 AM
- - Rakhir   Cryosat team desperate to rebuild http://news.bb...   Oct 10 2005, 11:10 AM
- - Rakhir   Recent tests showed that "obsolete" old ...   Oct 15 2005, 01:42 PM
- - deglr6328   astronautix: "Unfortunately, this entire seri...   Oct 15 2005, 06:00 PM
- - BruceMoomaw   I've got some -- a much more detailed account ...   Oct 15 2005, 09:06 PM
- - BruceMoomaw   The report (V.G. Perminov, "The Difficult Roa...   Oct 16 2005, 12:12 AM
|- - ljk4-1   QUOTE (BruceMoomaw @ Oct 15 2005, 07:12 PM)Si...   Oct 16 2005, 02:51 PM
- - RNeuhaus   Bruce, Thanks for bring us the knowledge of the pr...   Oct 16 2005, 02:41 AM
- - BruceMoomaw   Unfortunately, that Wikipedia article still leaves...   Oct 16 2005, 10:34 PM
|- - ljk4-1   QUOTE (BruceMoomaw @ Oct 16 2005, 05:34 PM)Ho...   Oct 17 2005, 12:01 AM
- - BruceMoomaw   Yes, I read that. (As I understand it, it's s...   Oct 17 2005, 02:52 AM
|- - ljk4-1   QUOTE (BruceMoomaw @ Oct 16 2005, 09:52 PM)Ye...   Oct 17 2005, 02:41 PM
- - edstrick   Regarding the Mars 6 descent data. 2 sets of scie...   Oct 17 2005, 06:22 AM
- - Rakhir   Ban On Russian Rokot Launches Lifted "The ca...   Oct 26 2005, 11:35 AM


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