Mars 3 (Various Topics Merged) Options

[Guest_Zvezdichko_*]

Yeah, that's what I meant. Volna failed to launch Cosmos 1 twice. Also we will need a new stage for an interplanetary flight + a cruise stage that has yet to be developed. If MetNet is aboard Phobos-Grunt it won't need it.

[tedstryk]

My guess is that the little Chinese orbiter took its place on Phobos-Grunt. I would imagine that funding is a major issue. The very existence of the mission owes itself to a way Russia could pay back debt owed to Finland in the late 1990s. At the time, Russia was hat-in-hand, but things have changed, and they may not want to sink more into the mission, given that they could easily afford to just pay Finland now.

[Guest_Zvezdichko_*]

I understand, but I also don't see how the design of both Metnet and Yinghuo fits in the overall mission. The oldest schemes I posess are from laspace.ru and they are in Russian (no problem for me, I can read it). How are they going to attach the orbiter? Will it be power-independent during the cruise phase? Will it use its own engines for MOI or it will relay on the engines of Phobos-Grunt?

[tedstryk]

I understand, but I also don't see how the design of both Metnet and Yinghuo fits in the overall mission. The oldest schemes I posess are from laspace.ru and they are in Russian (no problem for me, I can read it). How are they going to attach the orbiter? Will it be power-independent during the cruise phase? Will it use its own engines for MOI or it will relay on the engines of Phobos-Grunt?

I have those diagrams and have wondered the same thing. My only guess is that it will be released before MOI. Given the huge elliptical orbit Yinghuo is supposed to have, it will probably do its own MOI. I have no idea about power during the cruise phase.

[Guest_Zvezdichko_*]

You are probably right. The Chinese orbiter will be dedicated mainly to studying the upper atmosphere and the interplanetary medium. It doesn't need to be into a low Martian orbit.
As for Phobos-Grunt I have also some worries. It's more complicated mission that Phobos 1/2 and Soyuz doesn't have the capability of Proton. Does that mean that a most of its systems aboard have no redundancy?

[tedstryk]

You are probably right. The Chinese orbiter will be dedicated mainly to studying the upper atmosphere and the interplanetary medium. It doesn't need to be into a low Martian orbit.
As for Phobos-Grunt I have also some worries. It's more complicated mission that Phobos 1/2 and Soyuz doesn't have the capability of Proton. Does that mean that a most of its systems aboard have no redundancy?

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that in the post-Soviet era, miniaturization has greatly improved. I still worry. While NASA has a nasty habit of launching missions stripped down to just a few instruments, Russia has a real problem with trying to load every imaginable device onto a probe creating very high levels of complexity (and many opportunities for failure).

[Guest_Zvezdichko_*]

Yeah, that's why the failure of Mars 96 was really bad. Some of the instruments (HRSC, OMEGA) were reflown aboard Mars Express, others ... well, that's the real loss.

One of the instruments was developed (at least partially) in Bulgaria. It's RADIUS-M. It was supposed to study radiation and if I recall correctly, it's the last Bulgarian scientific instrument which flew aboard an interplanetary mission. I'm sure that another radiation instrument, developed by IKI-BAN will fly aboard Chandrayaan and I hear unofficial rumors that Bulgarian scientists are working with Russian scientists on Phobos-Grunt. Does that mean that they are going to fly once again another radiation dosimeter? I still don't know.

Oh well, here is a link:

http://www.bnr.bg/RadioBulgaria/Emission_E...erial/April.htm - it says a little, but briefly that a "gauging instrument" will land on Phobos. So, yes, they may refly RADIUS-M.

[tedstryk]

I hope it makes it on there!

By the way, here is a link to the page in Harvey's book where he makes his claim.

http://books.google.com/books?id=jKmIclMIw...p8C54&hl=en

[Guest_Zvezdichko_*]

Ted, I'm reading the upper link with a great interest. About Mars 6: it says that the photometer took colour filter images of the atmosphere. Do you have some images (as files)? I had once, on a paper and I lost it

[tedstryk]

I don't think the Mars-6 flyby module took images. The Mars-4 and Mars-5 craft took pictures with a photometer. Mars-6 had one, but I don't think it was used (I could be wrong). Given Harvey's story about the Mars-3 "image," his book is not a credible source. Here are the Mars 4 and 5 photometer images.

http://www.strykfoto.org/mars4and5.htm

[Geert]

About Mars 6: it says that the photometer took colour filter images of the atmosphere. Do you have some images (as files)? I had once, on a paper and I lost it

The Mars-6 lander carried a photometer which was used to measure lightlevels, probably similar to instruments carried on the Venera Venus landers.
Quote: "Contrary to exaggerated press reports, it seems unlikely the instrument was able to return color images" (ref. "Mars 5 and 6 Flight Analysed", Flight International, 4 April 1974 439-440, also ref "Robotic Exploration of the Solar System" Ulivi/Harland, page 167).

I have never seen any reference to pictures taken by the flyby bus of Mars 6 or 7, only pictures taken by Mars 4 and 5 have been published.

[tedstryk]

The Mars-6 lander carried a photometer which was used to measure lightlevels, probably similar to instruments carried on the Venera Venus landers.
Quote: "Contrary to exaggerated press reports, it seems unlikely the instrument was able to return color images" (ref. "Mars 5 and 6 Flight Analysed", Flight International, 4 April 1974 439-440, also ref "Robotic Exploration of the Solar System" Ulivi/Harland, page 167).

I have never seen any reference to pictures taken by the flyby bus of Mars 6 or 7, only pictures taken by Mars 4 and 5 have been published.

I would almost wonder if that reference is to Mars-4 and 5. None of them had color photometers, but instead operated at visible and infrared wavelenths. The film cameras could take color pictures, and Mars-5 returned a few before it failed. Pverkhnosti Marsa is the best reference with regard to this mission.

[Phil Stooke]

A different story on Mars 2 and Mars 3.

Where did they land and why were those places chosen? I was just plotting the locations on maps of image coverage from previous missions. Mars 2 crashed in Hellas, in the area imaged by Mariner 7. Mars 3 landed right on the southwest corner of Mariner 4 image 13, south of Newton crater. This suggests its target was actually inside the imaged area. The target latitude would be defined by EDL design and the seasons on Mars, and is about 45 south for both missions (incidentally, Wackypedia is waaay off with Mars 2... where did that come from?). It makes a lot of sense for the two mission targets to be in the only areas imaged at that time at that latitude. The site's geological context would be known. And Mariner 7 images seemed to show Hellas was a very smooth plain (actually it was looking at clouds inside the basin), so it would be safe.

So all that looks like it might make sense. But then this can potentially be used to resolve the discrepancy in longitudes between NSSDC and Astronautix.com site locations. Astronautix longitudes are ten degrees larger than NSSDC longitudes. But the Mars 3 site wouldn't be in the image area if the larger longitude value is used.

EDIT - next day - oops, I'm maligning Astronautix, the incorrect location actually came from http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4212/ch9.html (The NASA history volume on Viking). (Possibly the website used that value earlier and has edited it recently)

Any thoughts?

Phil

[tedstryk]

According to Sasha Basilevsky, Hellas was chosen for exactly the reasons you say (based on a conversation I had with him). As far as Mars-3 goes, I have no clue.

[Phil Stooke]

Yikes - Google Mars has Mars 2 at the stupid Wikipedia location - it's a travesty ah tells ye!

Phil