Help - Search - Members - Calendar
Full Version: Lost landers from HiRISE
Unmanned Spaceflight.com > Mars & Missions > Past and Future
Pages: 1, 2
tuvas
Okay, we now have definitive pictures of VL1, 2, Spirit, Opportunity, and a Pathfinder coming up soon. So, now, what would the lost landers look like, starting with Beagle, MPL, and Mars 6, which will be the easiest to find of the landers. Just curious to hear your thoughts. Thanks!
Tesheiner
> So, now, what would the lost landers look like ...

Mmm, do you already know the answer, tuvas? wink.gif
tuvas
QUOTE (Tesheiner @ Jan 3 2007, 01:57 PM) *
> So, now, what would the lost landers look like ...

Mmm, do you already know the answer, tuvas? wink.gif


Nope, I sure don't, yet. Keep in mind even if we did know what to look for, it's a large area, and without having a really good idea, well, it'd be quite near impossible...

As to why, well, let's just say Alfred is getting tired of being asked about one of these landers, and wants to be able to give them a definitive answer sometime relatively soon. Of course, that could be a few weeks, or a few months, but sometime in that time range.
djellison
MPL will have to wait until Southern Summer I presume - we should know where it is FAIRLY well from tracking etc. and we know we should be able to find a parachute VERY easily, as well as Backshell and Heatshield. As for the lander itself - slightly smaller than the viking spacecraft if memory serves me right - and likely to be a lot 'shorter' (i.e. crushed landing legs etc ) - and if there were any 'splat' mark from leaked fuel etc - i would have thought that 3 winters would have eliminated much if not all evidence of that.

Beagle 2, well that supposed MOC target would be an interesting starting point. How far B2 got through its landing sequence before failing will dictate how much 'stuff' is on the ground. The Chute - if 'entry' worked - deflated airbags should be visible as well, if it got further than that. The heatshield, backshell and indeed the lander itself - I would say no - going on the sim I managed which seems to be something roughly indicative going on MER experience...
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...ost&id=8409

As for pieces of the historic Russian landers - I would be doubtfull. They were comparatively small, and their Parachutes and indeed any other hardware- if anything like V1 and V2's chutes - will almost certainly be dust-covered and hard to identify.

Doug
nprev
Has anybody derived an estimate of the overall dust deposition rate yet based on the MRO VL1 & 2 observations? This might help to identify the 'lost' landers by providing contrast models, etc.

BTW, did all the Soviet landers use chutes (whether they deployed or not)? These seem to be the most detectable artifacts, generally speaking. I seem to recall that Mars 2 was a hard lander, but not sure if that was a cover story myth or not...
tedstryk
QUOTE (nprev @ Jan 3 2007, 11:47 PM) *
Has anybody derived an estimate of the overall dust deposition rate yet based on the MRO VL1 & 2 observations? This might help to identify the 'lost' landers by providing contrast models, etc.

BTW, did all the Soviet landers use chutes (whether they deployed or not)? These seem to be the most detectable artifacts, generally speaking. I seem to recall that Mars 2 was a hard lander, but not sure if that was a cover story myth or not...


It was a de facto hard lander. It wasn't supposed to be. It entered the atmosphere at an angle that was too steep, and the parachute never got a chance to deploy before impact.
Bob Shaw
I wonder how visible the impact points of the DS2 landers would be?

Obviously, they were pretty small, but they may have kicked off something when they hit.


Bob Shaw
dvandorn
Let's see, a couple of responses, here...

Doug, I'm not sure we have a really good idea of what the MPL remains might look like. The greatest rate of landform change observed on Mars is in the polar regions; an awful lot of material moves around every Martian year when literally trillions of tons of solid CO2 gets laid down and then sublimates off.

Just for starters, I have to wonder what the simple weight of the dry ice built up on and over the crash (and the backshell & heat shield, for that matter) might have done to them. Just how deep does the dry ice layer lay down at MPL's latitude, anyway? Even if it wouldn't cover over MPL entirely, I'd think you would see some serious effects from being buried in dry ice.

Ditto for the 'chute. I don't know what was used to pigment MPL's 'chute, but I know a lot of dyes fade in extreme cold. After three winters, and dust deposition from the winds during sublimation season, I'm thinking that the 'chute may not be recognizable anymore.

And, yes -- the winds. We see that polar latitudes sublimate somewhat unevenly, with "warm" spots (thinner ice layers or rocks which receive more insolation through the dry ice cap and sublimate the frozen CO2 from below) clearing off and blowing dust onto adjacent dry ice surfaces, which creates more preferential sublimation, which creates more clear spots, until the whole surface is clear. The lander and any of its related EDL equipment might have created warm spots and been the sources of early clearing spots -- which means they might have been exposed to pretty stiff winds as pent-up CO2 gas blew through the ice ceiling. Hey, we *know* they blow through energetically enough to spray dust out onto adjacent dry ice-covered surfaces. What would such events do to the 'chute fabric (especially if it's super-cold)? What would they do to the wreck of MPL itself?

I mean, it's even possible that some pieces of MPL have been blown several meters away from the main crach site.

And to Bob, I'm on the fence as to whether the DS2 impact points would be obvious. We know that Spirit's heat shield drew a gouge into Bonneville's rim, which was extremely dark and contrasty with the surrounding materials. It was quite obvious in both MOC imagery and in the ground-level images from the far rim.

However, while MRO's view of Bonneville shows the heat shield, the albedo difference seems to be almost completely gone. I'll grant you, wind smoothing is probably at its peak effect at crater rims, but this would seem to argue against there being much in the way of identifying marks on the craters made by the penetrators. It might well be possible to identify the impact sites in other ways, but (especially after three Martian winters) I'm not all that sanguine that we'll be able to find them.

-the other Doug
hendric
QUOTE (dvandorn @ Jan 3 2007, 10:13 PM) *
Let's see, a couple of responses, here...

Just for starters, I have to wonder what the simple weight of the dry ice built up on and over the crash (and the backshell & heat shield, for that matter) might have done to them. Just how deep does the dry ice layer lay down at MPL's latitude, anyway? Even if it wouldn't cover over MPL entirely, I'd think you would see some serious effects from being buried in dry ice.


I will bet, umm...a $5 donation to UMSF that the MPL crash site will be very noticeable, due to the effect it has on the environment around it. Here's my wild scenario:

1. SW failure causes the engine to prematurely shut down.
2. Crash, with a small chance of a catastrophic explosion (although I personally doubt it)
3. Lander embeds itself into the ground, creating a depression and disturbing the dust around it.
4. Winter arrives, with the frost deposition covering the area.
5. Spring arrives, and as the sun starts warming the crash site, several things happen:
* MPL itself will heat up faster than the surroundings because of its albedo, and the pyramidal shape of the lander. Even if it is completely under the CO2, as the ice thins it will be heated below by MPL. My prediction is this will cause a "spider" or "geyser" vent to form at MPL's location, on the north side, while the south side stays mostly ice-locked. If any darker dust was exposed during the impact, this would accelerate and intensify the effect.
* The crash site is its own mini-crater, which will sublime faster on the south wall than the north wall, since the south wall faces the sun more directly. This will make MPL look like it is in an oval crater as the CO2 sublimates. If the crater is small enough, MPL's shadow might prevent this from happening.
* The view of the location would, obviously, change based on when during the thaw it is viewed.

So there you have it, my prediction is that MPL will be the first artificial geyser on Mars!

Of course, if it landed in a boulder field, the boulders could also cause a similar effect, potentially hiding the tree among the forest, so to speak.
edstrick
Terminology point: The Soviet Mars landers, as well as the early Luna landers including successful Luna 9 and 13, Pathfinder, and MER landers are all HARD landers. (Also Venera 4 through 8.) None of them were landings you could walk away from, the payloads were "armored", and the vehicles were not attitude controlled after touchdown.

The US Surveyors, the later Soviet Lunokhod carrying and Sample-return-vehicle carrying Luna landers, The later Soviet Venus landers, the US Vikings, Mars Polar Lander, Phoenix, and MSL are all soft landers.

The Deep Space 2 probes were impactor/penetrators, while the US Rangers and Deep Impact probes were impact missions.
lyford
The Soviets were true pioneers of lithobraking! smile.gif
djellison
http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/tekton/crater_c.html

Could be usefull smile.gif

I've got a segment of the B2 failure report that suggests, if it just splatted in without chute etc - total feature about 5 - 6m across. A crater approx 1.5 metres across, with a rim of about 7cm - think Genesis impact sort of scale.

Doug
Bob Shaw
QUOTE (edstrick @ Jan 4 2007, 12:47 PM) *
The Deep Space 2 probes were impactor/penetrators, while the US Rangers and Deep Impact probes were impact missions.


And the Ranger seismic capsules were also rough landers (NASA uses 'rough' in their SP-4210 Lunar Impact: A History of Project Ranger, and to be honest I think 'rough' is a better description than 'hard'!).

NEAR, Hayabusa, Phobos 1&2 and Phobos-Grunt are in a class of their own! 'Featherweight'?


Bob Shaw
tuvas
QUOTE (djellison @ Jan 4 2007, 10:21 AM) *


I just found it ironic that you sent a link to a website from the department that I work at. Wow, I didn't know LPL had QUITE so much fun stuff. Still, it shoulld be useful. It will be quite a challenge to find the lost probes, assuming indeed that they are lost, but who knows, we might have a chance somehow. We'll at least give it a shot. Who knows what'll happen.
djellison
What we need is an MSL proposed landing at Isidis Planatia - then you could wallpaper the Beagle 2 Ellipse with a proper reason smile.gif

Doug
tim53
I was a bit disappointed to learn how small the Russian landers were. So... given the poor knowledge of their locations, pretty much the only hope of identifying them even IF Hirise hits them, is a parachute that has somehow managed not to be covered with dust in 35 years...

...but it worked for VL-1!

-Tim.
JonClarke
QUOTE (tim53 @ Jan 4 2007, 10:18 PM) *
I was a bit disappointed to learn how small the Russian landers were. So... given the poor knowledge of their locations, pretty much the only hope of identifying them even IF Hirise hits them, is a parachute that has somehow managed not to be covered with dust in 35 years...

...but it worked for VL-1!

-Tim.


Mars 2-3 have only been on Mars for 5 years more than Viking, and Mars 6 for 2 years longer. the biggest problem I quess is the certainity of their position.

Jon
edstrick
"...NEAR, Hayabusa, Phobos 1&2 and Phobos-Grunt are in a class of their own! 'Featherweight'?"

Near and Hayabusa soft-landed, even though they weren't designed to land and sit still.

The Phobos mission "hopper" was essentially a hard lander, though first-impact speed would have been less than any large body hard lander. I have no idea what the predicted orbital evolution of Phobos 1 would have been after failure and communication loss in phobos-synchronized orbit. It was in an orbit with the same period as Phobos, as I recall, but somewhat elliptical, crossing the moon's orbit ahead or behind (or both) the moon as it orbited Mars. Seems likely to eventually impact Phobos, but I never heard a prediction.

The Pioneer Venus probes were "atmosphere descent probes" with end-of-mission at impact, but one nightside probe survived for a second and the Day probe survived for over an hour before it ---> FRIED <---, so it ended up being an inadvertent hard lander.

"Rough" lander might contrast with "smooth"... uh... I prefer Hard-impact and Soft-landing as the un-contracted ideas behind the terminology. The basic distinction is how "ruggedized" the lander must be and how protected it must be from the rough-and-tumble after uncontrolled hard impact vs. the requirement to remain stable after controlled soft impact.
ljk4-1
Though the odds are small until we can actually visit the site in person,
I wonder if the little tethered rover on the Mars 3 lander ever activated?
The tether was apparently 15 meters long.

So perhaps MP and the MERs were not the first to make tread marks on Mars.

http://www.planetary.org/mars/tpr_rover-rus_first-rover.html
nprev
Man, those were ambitious missions...I sure wish that they had succeeded despite the limitations of their technology & the odds! sad.gif Thanks for the link, ljk4-1.

Given the (apparently still current) thinking that Mars 3 was overturned by winds, I sincerely doubt that the rover could have deployed. Neat thought, though...
Bob Shaw
QUOTE (nprev @ Jan 6 2007, 01:06 AM) *
Man, those were ambitious missions...I sure wish that they had succeeded despite the limitations of their technology & the odds! sad.gif Thanks for the link, ljk4-1.

Given the (apparently still current) thinking that Mars 3 was overturned by winds, I sincerely doubt that the rover could have deployed. Neat thought, though...


'Wun away wittle wed wover, wun awwaaaay!'

(crunch)


Bob Shaw
climber
QUOTE (Bob Shaw @ Jan 4 2007, 01:52 AM) *
I wonder how visible the impact points of the DS2 landers would be?

Obviously, they were pretty small, but they may have kicked off something when they hit.
Bob Shaw

Can't remember if they were 2 or 4! I think 4. Do you know how close of each other they were scheduled to "land"? That has always anoyed me that Both MPL and DS2 failed. Hope it's not the whole package that had trouble way before landing. Anyway, I bet we'll see the probe since MRO's has been so amazing so far. I know I'm an incorigible optimist.
ljk4-1
QUOTE (nprev @ Jan 5 2007, 08:06 PM) *
Man, those were ambitious missions...I sure wish that they had succeeded despite the limitations of their technology & the odds! sad.gif Thanks for the link, ljk4-1.

Given the (apparently still current) thinking that Mars 3 was overturned by winds, I sincerely doubt that the rover could have deployed. Neat thought, though...


The more likely answer is that the Mars 3 relay orbiter went out of range for the
lander or there was a communications problem with the orbiter. The whole bit
about the dust storm disrupting things has been overblown, pardon the pun. I
believe that Martian winds are not quite as fierce as on Earth, even the ones that
whipped dust all over Mars in 1971.

Note that the Soviets were quite big on blaming natural causes for the failure of
their space probes, rather than any problems with their Glorious People's Technology.

When Mars 1 stopped transmitting before it reached Mars in 1963 (even though it set a
distance record at the time), the Soviets blamed a meteor hit rather than any problems
with the communications equipment. It was purely a guess on their part, as they had
no way to detect such a strike, especially one that would knock out the probe as a result.

At least we know that Mars 3 is intact on the surface and its parachute and heatshield
are not too far off. As for Mars 2 and 6, I wonder how easily MRO can tell a relatively
recent artificial crater from an older natural one?
nprev
Yeah, I'd buy that as a probable alternative explanation.

IIRC, a 200 mph wind on Mars is equivalent in force to something like 25 mph wind on Earth, and the 1971 dust storm was a beaut. Might have been enough to tip a lander during terminal descent (esp. if it also hit a rock! rolleyes.gif ), but we probably won't know until somebody physically stumbles across Mars 3 during an EVA. (In fact, it'll probably be a homesteader circa 2600 AD...lucky guy! biggrin.gif )
ljk4-1
QUOTE (nprev @ Jan 5 2007, 09:49 PM) *
Yeah, I'd buy that as a probable alternative explanation.

IIRC, a 200 mph wind on Mars is equivalent in force to something like 25 mph wind on Earth, and the 1971 dust storm was a beaut. Might have been enough to tip a lander during terminal descent (esp. if it also hit a rock! rolleyes.gif ), but we probably won't know until somebody physically stumbles across Mars 3 during an EVA. (In fact, it'll probably be a homesteader circa 2600 AD...lucky guy! biggrin.gif )


The Mars 3 lander transmitted from the planet's surface for 90 seconds, 20 of which
involved returning an image that likely contained nothing but noise.

Would the lander have been able to transmit at all if it had been tipped over? And
would it have survived landing on a rock in the first place? Just imagine if Viking 1
had come down on Big Joe - we never would have found out what happened to
Viking 1, that's what.
nprev
QUOTE (ljk4-1 @ Jan 5 2007, 06:52 PM) *
The Mars 3 lander transmitted from the planet's surface for 90 seconds, 20 of which
involved returning an image that likely contained nothing but noise.

Would the lander have been able to transmit at all if it had been tipped over?


Actually, that's an extremely interesting & pertinent question: How 'directional' was the Mars 3 lander antenna for transmission? The answer may go a long way towards resolving this controversy.

Recall also that Oppy's initial landing was confused by multipath reception due to its location within Eagle Crater; they thought it was still bouncing for a LONG time. Was the Mars 3 transmission just maybe a secondary reflection? This might account for the apparently high SNR...
tedstryk
QUOTE (ljk4-1 @ Jan 6 2007, 02:52 AM) *
The Mars 3 lander transmitted from the planet's surface for 90 seconds, 20 of which
involved returning an image that likely contained nothing but noise.

Would the lander have been able to transmit at all if it had been tipped over? And
would it have survived landing on a rock in the first place? Just imagine if Viking 1
had come down on Big Joe - we never would have found out what happened to
Viking 1, that's what.

One theory put forth is that the parachute blew over the lander. My hunch is that the transmitter was the problem, since the Mars 2 and 3 orbiters didn't have a fully working transmitter between them.
As old as Voyager
QUOTE (ljk4-1 @ Jan 6 2007, 02:39 AM) *
The more likely answer is that the Mars 3 relay orbiter went out of range for the
lander or there was a communications problem with the orbiter. The whole bit
about the dust storm disrupting things has been overblown, pardon the pun. I
believe that Martian winds are not quite as fierce as on Earth, even the ones that
whipped dust all over Mars in 1971.

Note that the Soviets were quite big on blaming natural causes for the failure of
their space probes, rather than any problems with their Glorious People's Technology.

When Mars 1 stopped transmitting before it reached Mars in 1963 (even though it set a
distance record at the time), the Soviets blamed a meteor hit rather than any problems
with the communications equipment. It was purely a guess on their part, as they had
no way to detect such a strike, especially one that would knock out the probe as a result.

At least we know that Mars 3 is intact on the surface and its parachute and heatshield
are not too far off. As for Mars 2 and 6, I wonder how easily MRO can tell a relatively
recent artificial crater from an older natural one?


So far we've only got a good up close look at one Martian crater definately known to be artificial.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050209.html

Notice how this mini crater displays the dark ejecta seen around far larger and natural recent craters.

I think natural and artificial craters will be indistinguishable unless some debris is still present.
edstrick
As I think I've pointed out in discussions here a year or two <?> ago, the 1971 global dust storm was in the decaying phase or at most a "plateau" phase at the time of the Mars probe and Mariner arrivals. When the dust fills the atmosphere and pushes tau <opacity, as is currently bothering Spirit rover> to two or more, thermal contrasts in the atmosphere vertically and horizontally are much reduced. The intense variation in solar energy absorption between dusty and non-dusty atmosphere that plays a role in dust storm generation and spreading is gone. There's an increase and change in thermal tides from daytime heating and nighttime cooling of the atmosphere directly, instead of by contact with the heating and cooling surface, but that's generalized, not localized.

It's most unlikely that storm specific winds caused the failure of Mars 3. It's more likely that it hit hard due to imperfect landing system design or poor quality control, or the sorts of problems with the dust-inflated atmosphere that almost caused problems for the MER rovers. It could have had high lateral velocity due to winds and been smacked against a rock..... Whatever. The real problem is that there wasn't any real diagnostic telemetry (so far as we know) reporting on the descent and landing transmitted in real time or after landing. If any was stored on board for eventual relay, I suspect it was rudimentary anyway. There were signals during descent, but I think at a very low data rate.
tuvas
QUOTE (As old as Voyager @ Jan 6 2007, 03:10 AM) *
So far we've only got a good up close look at one Martian crater definately known to be artificial.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050209.html

Notice how this mini crater displays the dark ejecta seen around far larger and natural recent craters.

I think natural and artificial craters will be indistinguishable unless some debris is still present.


It's also possible that the dark ejecta could be due to it's recent nature. You can't really rule out anything, at this point in time. Few recent craters have been observed anywhere, and we still have alot to learn about those that we have.
nprev
The ejecta color also has to be at least partially a function of local soil composition.

Hmm...odd thought. On Earth, we generally observe that recent impact ejecta (from whatever event) exhibits color differences from the surface, and this phenomenon is usually--not always--due to the fact that the surface has undergone exposure to the elements, and therefore a myriad of chemical changes that the substrate has not experienced.

In this vein, I suggest that the MGS portfolio of recent impacts might merit detailed re-examination by MRO (esp. spectroscopic) in order to try to identify any effects that might be caused by differential oxidation. I'm thinking of the Viking LR "super-oxidant" theory, here...this might offer some new data and/or constraints.
mcaplinger
QUOTE (dvandorn @ Jan 3 2007, 08:13 PM) *
Just how deep does the dry ice layer lay down at MPL's latitude, anyway?

About 40 cm, based on http://ltpwww.gsfc.nasa.gov/tharsis/snow_paper.html -- it would take 3x that much to cover the lander over.
Zvezdichko
It seems that the hunt for Beagle 2 has already begun.

http://hiroc.lpl.arizona.edu/images/PSP/di...PSP_002347_1915

I do wonder when MRO will start imaging the MPL terrain.
djellison
When the seasons allow. The MPL site is in total darkness now.

Doug
robspace54
Emily L. at Planetary society posted this today:

http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00000858/

Seems like Beagle2 is NOT sitting in this crater deployed or undeployed. This is the crater that some hopeful B2 people thought held a deployed, but non functioning, Beagle2. Fuzzy pictures stretched to the limit seemed to show, at least to wishing eyes, that the craft was there.

The HiRise picture of the entire landing ellipse is very large, so it may be lurking in the pixels down there somewhere. But as Emily points out, if the parachuite did not deploy, then the craft is very far downrange and therefore out of the ellipse.

Rob
elakdawalla
Rob, you'll find the Beagle 2 discussion here.

--Emily
KobeDane
QUOTE (djellison @ Jan 4 2007, 12:07 AM) *
MPL will have to wait until Southern Summer I presume - we should know where it is FAIRLY well from tracking etc. and we know we should be able to find a parachute VERY easily, as well as Backshell and Heatshield. As for the lander itself - slightly smaller than the viking spacecraft if memory serves me right - and likely to be a lot 'shorter' (i.e. crushed landing legs etc ) - and if there were any 'splat' mark from leaked fuel etc - i would have thought that 3 winters would have eliminated much if not all evidence of that.

Beagle 2, well that supposed MOC target would be an interesting starting point. How far B2 got through its landing sequence before failing will dictate how much 'stuff' is on the ground. The Chute - if 'entry' worked - deflated airbags should be visible as well, if it got further than that. The heatshield, backshell and indeed the lander itself - I would say no - going on the sim I managed which seems to be something roughly indicative going on MER experience...
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...ost&id=8409

As for pieces of the historic Russian landers - I would be doubtfull. They were comparatively small, and their Parachutes and indeed any other hardware- if anything like V1 and V2's chutes - will almost certainly be dust-covered and hard to identify.

Doug


Hello Doug

I am new to this blog and this forum....I want to help find the MPL....actually anything up there that man sent....but I always wondered what happened to that
particular lander. It was expensive. It promised so much. It just disappeared. Like everyone else I would like to know why.

To try to understand what is involved with the search, I have been looking at one of the HiRISE Images assigned to the MPL Search.

I agree with comments made by tuvas.

I have to say that trying to find a Mars Lander or wreckage of same on this series of HiRISE Images is going to be a massive undertaking, even if you do know what you are looking for.

As part of my job I view RT Films of welds and you really need some experience to accurately understand what you are looking at.....same case here.

The Zoomify Viewer provided on the HiRISE site is pretty good and I am astonished at the resolution which seems to me to be much better than 25cm per pixel.

I wish it had a grid overlay that you could tick off.....something like that to keep track of what you have looked at. Also some sort of reference coordinates linked to the cursor
which would give exact location so others can easily and quickly find and verify for themselves.

Frankly, some of the images I am seeing, well....I have no idea what it is I am looking at.....I have found a number of objects that look like man made wreckage to me.....

(I have posted these 23 images in an album with comments on the following site for anyone interested....

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=260...e=1&theater

All objects are from one picture PSP_005301-1030) but look at these HiRISE images long enough and after a while you see all sorts of things. I will be adding to
to the 23 images as I find more in the debris fields I think I am finding.)

I found these objects just by trying to identify things that stood out as being different from their surrounding terrain using a complete scan at
20M resolution and then zooming in further for confirmation. The Images are naturally very blurry and it's only to be expected.....I have no
image enhancement software beyond Photo Impact 12 and that doesn't improve these images. These are only PrntScrn captures via Photo Impact 12
to get to .jpg images that I could post on Facebook. The were always going to be degraded.....sorry. It just show the difficulties
beginners have to cope with when they try to interpret images and then submit them for consideration.

To aid radiographers when they review RT Films of welds there are often reference images showing the appearance of typical defects.
Something similar to guide novice interpreters would be invaluable.

One of the hardest things for people to do is identify things from above as opposed to head on or from the side. There are clearly people
on this blog with considerable experience who are in a position to easily identify the MPL as well as Martian terrain......
It would be very useful if that knowledge could be passed on in some way to beginners and even other more experienced searchers.

Finally, someone has to look at images of submitted possible MPL crash sites and say "yea" or "nay"......

In the interests of sifting out the spurious stuff and giving the idea of what might be right, it might help to have a
"Hall of Blunders and Possibles" Site with all the pics annotated with verdict and their location clearly indicated on the HiRISE Image
of concern. For example, someone may have found the same things I have on PSP_005301-1030 and they have long ago been
dismissed as non-starters. It would help tremendously with realizing efficient use of time and effort.

A question......

In the case of the Mars Polar Lander do we know if the heat shield and back shield and chute detached. I ask because one of the
objects I have found looks like the MPL sitting on it's Heat Shield, back shield present but displaced, with chute still attached
....please note I didn't say is.....just looks like.

If we know the heat shield and back shield and chute detached what I have found clearly isn't the MPL ....just something that
looks odd. I am going to post some images of this possible MPL and other anomalies here just to give you an idea of what I
am talking about and give others an idea of problems with image interpretation......other details are on Facebook if anyone needs more
information about location and so on to check for themselves. I have not messed with these images beyond
labeling, adding arrows or outlines or zooming in even more....I all cases I recommend going back to the Zoomifier
http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/HiRISE/hirise...SP_005391_1030/
The control panel takes you down to a view with 20M scale. Right clicking gives you the option to zoom in further.

One last point...something you said.....I do agree that sands may cover wreckage of old Russian landers but also winds blow
sand away from covered objects here on earth particularly after large dust storms. Might that not happen on Mars?

Large areas of the Image I have searched on my first HiRise Image showed little signs of sand drifts, just lots and lots of
rock formations of various types (I think).

It can work both ways I think....hope.

It would be amazing to find those old Russian Landers and MPL...in fact any of the old space debris. Just to get something from
Earth to the Martian surface regardless of whether it worked or not, is a tremendous achievement and an important
monument to the amazing technology and scientific achievements of man and stupendous efforts of thousands of
Earth's brilliant and best and each debris field is maybe worth pinpointing on the Map of Mars. Also....it would stop them being
rediscovered.

PS - OK - Sorry but due to 500 pixel max limit on the width on this blog I don't think you will be able to see much from the images that
I have posted here......my apologies....please see the images posted on my Facebook Wall

Click to view attachment
Click to view attachment
Click to view attachment
Click to view attachment
Click to view attachment
Click to view attachment
Click to view attachment
dilo
If I try to open any one of attached images in previous post, an error of "missing file" occours...
Problem misteriously solved just after my reply!
djellison
QUOTE (KobeDane @ Jan 24 2012, 08:10 PM) *
In the case of the Mars Polar Lander do we know if the heat shield and back shield and chute detached.


We have absolutely no idea. After the spacecraft turned toward it's entry attitude, and (as expected) went quiet...nothing was ever heard again.

I'm afraid none of your candidates stand out to me at least. One could easily find many similar features in a swathe of HiRISE images. Moreover, since the last post in this thread more than 5 years ago - we have an interesting analogue to compare to.

Look at the images of Phoenix after just one Martian winter.

http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/images/2010/...16_2485_cut.jpg


An intact lander that safely touched down without trouble, along with a heatsheild impact, a backshell and parachute landing nearby - their visibility has been massively compromised after just one Martian winter.

The parachute is entirely invisible. The backshell is visible, but much less defined, the heatshield impact has been rendered, in my opinion, indistinguishable from the natural terrain - and the lander significantly degraded. If it had never deployed it's solar arrays and just smashed into the ground rapidly (as the MPL investigation suggests it might) then it could be argued it would be no more visible than the PHX heatshield is now.

Now extrapolate the same problem to MPL. Let's assume it got thru EDL to the point of separating from it's back shell - and thus the back shell with Parachute, and heat-shield would have impacted just like with Phoenix.

Take the obscuration of the Phoenix hardware over just one Martian winter. Now multiply that by 3, 4 or 5 (depending on what season you are picking images from) - that polar lander site has been thru several winters - coverings and exposures of frost etc.

Honestly, I don't think even if it's there, we could, with confidence, identify it.

I think if you're going to expend energy on this - far better to do it at an equatorial site ( where, for example, we know a parachute like Mars Pathfinder is still visible - http://hiroc.lpl.arizona.edu/images/2007/d...MPF_parts_2.jpg - after 10 years ) with sites like Beagle 2 (where we have a fairly well constrained entry ellipse). I would urge caution for the Russian sites....the area required to be searched is simply massive, and I doubt if any genuine attempt has been to cover those sites with HiRISE at all.
PDP8E
On the HiRise website this week (Feb2012) they posted an image that may contain the Soviet Mars 6 lander.
The press release said that this particular image-site was picked by the CTX team based on a bright spot ... it turned out to be cracked bedrock in the HiRise image.

Here is Spirit's site with CTX at 3X! (using JP2000 base image and post processed for sharpness) circa 2010
Click to view attachment

Here is Opportunity's site with CTX at 3X (JP2000) circa 2008
Click to view attachment

IMHO ... CTX images can not image parachutes or landers.
It has a resolution of almost 20 meters per pixel. (HiRise is 100 times better).
The minimum parachute-hunting camera is probably the MGS-MOC (1.5 - 3meters).

But I sure am glad the CTX guys got their HiWish in the Mars 6 area
(good job guys, now get those HiRise guys to go a little to the west!)

notes:
Viking-1 - parachute faintly visible in HiRise
Viking-2 - parachute NOT visible in HiRise
Pathfinder - parachute visible in HiRise
Soviets 3,6 - ????
MPL and Beagle - we need a location, some luck, and a bigger camera!
elakdawalla
QUOTE (PDP8E @ Feb 17 2012, 08:29 PM) *
It has a resolution of almost 20 meters per pixel. (HiRise is 100 times better).

No, CTX resolution is 6 meters per pixel.

<snark>Clearly it's too bad they didn't consult you before taking that wasted photo.</snark>
IM4
It maybe interesting to you that a parachute-like feature was recently spotted in the Mars 3 landing area. Amateurs from russian Novosti-kosmonavtiki forum have discovered a bright patch, 8 meters in size, "covering" nearby rocks.


HIRISE image PSP_006154_1345, grayscale, map-projected, pixel coords: 18302,54327

Looks pretty strange, unlike any bedrocks I've seen. Could it be related to Mars 3 mission?
djellison
What was Mars 3's landing system like - and thus what other hardware would we expect to find locally? Heatshield size, was there a backshell. Did the chute stay attached to the lander etc etc.
IM4
QUOTE (djellison @ Feb 21 2012, 04:42 PM) *
What was Mars 3's landing system like - and thus what other hardware would we expect to find locally? Heatshield size, was there a backshell. Did the chute stay attached to the lander etc etc.

I recommend you to take a look at that movie. Reentry vehicle views as well as entry, descent and landing timeline are both presented there.
There was no backshell attached to parachute system as it was in the american Mars missions. Chute was ejected by retrorockets before the landing. Attached images illustrate reentry vehicle size and final vehicle configuration just before the touchdown. According to these pictures we have to find: heatshield (~4 meters in diameter), toroidal block (~2 m in diameter), retrorockets, landing apparatus itself (an "egg" 1-1.5 meter in size)
djellison
QUOTE (IM4 @ Feb 21 2012, 09:29 AM) *
There was no backshell attached to parachute system as it was in the american Mars missions. Chute was ejected by retrorockets before the landing.


But there is a confluence point for the riser to the parachute, than contained those smaller solids - so there should be something quite obvious, right next to it.

The heatshield could be findable - that's quite large - larger than MER.


Thanks for the movie link - for all kinds of retro reasons - it's amazing!
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.

Click to view attachment

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?
This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.
Invision Power Board © 2001-2024 Invision Power Services, Inc.