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.

[Geert]

Various sources all seem to confirm that the camera's of the Mars 3 lander scanned vertical lines, moving from left to right, identical to the camera's on Luna 9/13 and on the later Venera landers. So, as has been mentioned here before, the image should be rotated by 90 degrees and the 'horizon' does not make sense unless the craft is lying (almost) on its side.

There is one more interesting description in 'The Difficult Road to Mars' of V.G. Perminov, who describes the receipt of the Mars 3 lander signal on earth: "The transmission of panoramic images of the Martian surface recorded on the magnetic tape was initiated. The main engineer of NII KP, Yu.K.Khodarev, who was standing close to the rack where the signal was displayed, gave a command to reduce the signal because it was too strong. Then, the telephotometer data were transmitted. There was a gray background with no details. In 14.5 seconds, the signal disappeared. The same thing happened with the second telephotometer."

I presume that the "image" we have is in fact the raw teleprint of the signal as received, in which case the quickly darkening after the white area is in fact not an automatic gain control, but a manual adjustment on receipt of the signal. With the image in its correct (vertical) orientation, the whole "horizon" is then also explained as a further manual adjustment of the gain in the hope of getting some picture...

Personally I am still convinced that the whole error was in the relay via the Mars 3 orbiter, and that the lander probably functioned normally and completed its whole preprogrammed surface schedule. Fact is that the lander survived its landing (it had to deploy its pads and antenna after landing in order to start its transmissions, so probably all the basic functions and electronics worked), and from what we now know the duststorm would probably not have had much effect on it, so it is weird that after surviving EDL and starting its surface operations, both transmitters should shut down more or less at the same time.
On the other hand we do know that the Mars 3 orbiter had some serious trouble when braking into Mars orbit. It's engineburn was cut short, resulting in a completely wrong orbit, and it lost 3-axis stabilisation untill one hour after the burn, at which time the lander data was finally transmitted to earth.
With the orbiter not 3-axis stabilised it sounds reasonable that its relay antenna were not pointing to the Mars surface and it lost lock on the lander signal quickly, in which case it is logical that all lander-channels were lost almost at the same time. The 'picture' seems to confirm this, there are black 'gaps' which seem to indicate the signal was lost, then regained, and then lost again, it did not suddenly stop but it faded in and out a few times..

Finally, the lander was pre-programmed for a surface transmission of 25 minutes, where after it would switch to hibernation mode and wait for a signal from the orbiter on its next pass (scheduled 25 hours later) before starting the next transmission. However, the orbiter burned into a completely wrong orbit, with a period of 12 days, and by the time it finally passed over the landing site again, the lander was long dead...

The only 'hope' of ever getting any information from the Mars 3 lander is finding the original tape of the transmission (the one without the manual changes to the gain), if the error was indeed in the orbiter relay due to failure of its attitude-control, then there might be some very faint whisper of the lander somewhere on the tape which was overlooked at the time, and with our modern equipment something might be retrieved from it. But I guess this is overly optimistic...

[tedstryk]

Two or three minutes into the transmission, the first data transmission (temperature, pressure, etc.) would have come in. If that could be pulled out of a tape, it would be amazing. I seriously doubt that, even if the tapes exist, that anything can be recovered, but it would be cool if it could.