Lost landers from HiRISE, The next step Options

[James Sorenson]

Although this looks like an interesting candidate, it is worth pointing out that there is also some fairly bright soil near that large gathering of rocks. What is the possibility of ice or frost in the Mars 3 landing zone?

[djellison]

It's only 45deg South, and HiRISE images mid-afternoon. I'd consider frost to be very very unlikely.

[PDP8E]

That Soviet movie was very cool. Here are some of the essentials I have gleaned over the years...
MARS 3 Main parts
* Lander = 1.2 meter spherical, with 4 petals to right itself
* Aero/Heat shield = 2.9 meter, (more conical, than rounded- there is no back shell)
* Braking parachute
* Main parachute
* Retro rockets
MARS 3 EDL Sequence
09:14 UT (2/DEC/71) Mars 3 separated from the orbiter
09:30 UT - Engines were fire to re-orient the spacecraft (aeroshield forward)
13:47 UT - Entry into the Martian atmosphere at 5.7 km/sec; at an angle less than 10 degrees.
(unknown time) - The braking parachute was deployed
(unk time) – Main chute was deployed which was ‘reefed’ until the craft dropped below supersonic velocity, at which time it was fully deployed.
(unk time) – The aero/heat shield was ejected, and the radar altimeter was turned on. Mars 3 is going in head first (altimeter is on the top of the craft)
(unk time) - At an altitude of 20 to 30 meters at a velocity of 60 - 110 m/s the parachute is released with retrorockets, bring it off to the side, the main retrorockets continue to fire. The lander is released to drop to the surface. The retros carry the remainder of the EDL framework away (remind anyone of MSL?)
13:50:35 UT - Mars 3 ‘landed’ at the surface at a reported 20.7 m/s (ouch!); approx 45S, 158W .
(unk time) - The four petal-shaped covers open to right the lander
13:52:05 UT –The lander starts transmitting to the Mars 3 orbiter.
13:52:25 UT - The surface transmissions stop.
What should be left:
Aeroshield/Heatshield (size: 2.9 meters, within 500 meters of lander?)
Main parachute with spent retrorocket (unknown size; within 150 meters of the lander?)
EDL framework with spent retrorockets (size: <2 meters, within 100 meters of the lander)
Lander (1.2 meter sphere, white, 4 petals protruding)
(...or some jumbled up mess of lander and chutes....)

[Leither]

In 'The Difficult Road to Mars' by VG Perminov, Nasa Monograph, NP-1999-06-251-HQ

The heatshield is given as 3.2m (limited by the Proton shroud) and with a vertex angle of 120
The braking parachute area 13m2
Main parachute area 140m2 with the heat shield being jettisoned after main shute deployment
16-30m above the surface the solid fuelled braking engines fire to slow down the descent down to 6.5m/s at which point the lander is released into freefall. The braking engines released from their burden are then intended to 'flyaway' the main parachute as shown very graphically in Figure 12, bullet 13.



The aeroshell is 'pushed' away 17s after impact

In this source the text and the diagram indicate that the main shute and the braking engines remain attached right up to lander release.

Could that be a 140m2 parachute wrapped round the braking engines or even the lander??

[hendric]

If it is on top of the lander, the chute could stay cleaner because the dust would slide off the fabric. It's an interesting find either way, maybe it's a large outcropping of gypsum?

[dilo]

The movie is really amazing, IM4... at the last minute, you can see even dustdevils!

[Phil Stooke]

My concern about this is that I would not expect the parachute to be white after all this time. The Viking parachutes are almost invisible. On the other hand it is very solitary... no other similar features around it. However, the chance of determining which nearby lumps would be any other bit of mission hardware seems very unlikely.

Phil

[Zelenyikot]

Difference in parachutes of Vikings and the Soviet devices, apparently because of a material. The parachute of Mars-6 is visible very well.

[djellison]

That's not a parachute - it's exposed bedrock.

[Cosmic Penguin]

Copying from another thread: plausible Mars 3 candidate found!



HiRISE Link

JPL Link

[nprev]

I would call this intriguing, but far from definitive. The 'parachute' to me looks particularly suspect; not only does it look again like an exposed bedrock outcrop but it's suspiciously white after more than 40 years of airborne dust deposition.

[stevesliva]

^ Contrast-stretched image?

[Liss]

Copying from another thread: plausible Mars 3 candidate found!
[really big image removed - not necessary to repeat this in a quote - MOD]

I'd like to say that the image at reply #46 ( http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...st&p=183049 ) and the upper row of inserts in the PIA16920 image show exactly the same detail. So the text of the announcement lacks the first known discovery of Mars 3 chute; as Cosmic Penguin has said it was initially published with correct identification at the Novosti Kosmonavtiki forum and you may see the message and the image here: http://novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/forum/forum11/topic13212/ . The date of the posting is 20 Nov 2011 but the author claims he had found the suspected chute some time -- probably weeks or even months -- earlier.

[PDP8E]

Just got an email from the HiRise team for (one) of my HiWish sites. Yay!

Soviet Mars 3 Parachute Search:

http://www.uahirise.org/ESP_031247_1345

this is west of the images above.