Russia and America Competed with Mars Missions NASA has shut down some of the experiments to save power on the Voyager probes to allow them to function longer. It amazes me the probes are still active, after all they have been in space since 1977 and if my math is correct, that is almost 48 years being subject to the harshness of outer space. While we may not think of things this way, that is probably the most successful experiment so far. I always say that someday, we will have a space mission that will probably pass the voyagers on its way. Engineers are saying this has bought the probes another year before more experiments have to be turned off. The Voyagers both started with 10 science experiments each but now are down to 3 each. Since there are 2 Voyager probes, sometimes different experiments can be turned off, allowing one to still be conducting them. An estimate of the power remaining stated the probes can continue being powered into the 2030s, when at the end there will finally be the decision made to turn off the last experiment. In the early times of the space race, many other probes were launched. Sometimes, unexplained things happened to them. In particular the Russians seemed to have problems with their Mars probes. Russia seems to be jinxed when it comes to the Red planet. One of the most mysterious cases had to do with Phobos 2. Phobos 2 was launched July 12, 1988. What many people don’t realize is there were 12 nations involved with Russia and the probe, even including the United States which helped out with our Deep Space Network for tracking the probe. The probe began to orbit Mars in the beginning of 1989. It had been decided by Russian that it would explore the Mars moon Phobos, thus the name. The first step after orbiting Mars was to align with Phobos and this was accomplished, but that is when the strangeness began. Something was seen moving toward the probe and as it got closer it seemed to attack the probe and knocked it out and left it spinning out of control. Not only had contact been broken with the probe, but it had disappeared. The Russians put out a statement the next day which reads, “Phobos 2 captured strange photos of Mars before losing contact with its base.” It seems three different cameras captured the photos of the object which was described by the Russians as a thin ellipse 20 kilometers long. That is about 12.4 miles long. I remember hearing about a dark shadow which was seen over the probe before it disappeared. One thing is for sure, we didn’t have any craft capable of doing this or of such an incredible size. Why was the United States so much more successful than Russia at getting to Mars with probes and rovers? It seemed almost like the Russians were being prevented from going there on purpose, but if it wasn’t us, who else could have been the cause? Maybe I should say what instead of who. While Phobos 2 was the strangest type of failure, the Russians also had many launch failures with their Mars probes. They were trying to get there since 1960 when they launched their 1M number 1 on October 10, 1960. It wasn’t until November 5, 1964 the United States launched a flyby of Mars named Mariner 3. The Russians had tried three times before this to not only do flybys, but also to actually land on Mars, but they were plagued by failures of different stages on the rockets. The Americans, happy with the success of their Mars flyby, did even better when Mariner 4 reached Mars doing a flyby, and for the first time photos of the planet Mars were beamed back to earth. That year the Russians launched Zond 2, also known as 3M.V. 4 number 2. While the launch was successful, the rocket failed on it way to Mars. The next Mars mission was launched by the United States and was Mariner 6. It was another flyby mission and managed to get 75 photos of the planet. By this time, the Russians must have been getting very frustrated. After all they had been leading the world in space and had been first to launch a satellite in space and send up a human, the famous Yuri Gagarin, and yet we seemed to be kicking their butt. What had happened, had their rockets become inferior to ours or had their technology fallen behind? In 1969 the Russians decided to send an orbiter to Mars. This time the rocket exploded and the Mars jinx continued. The United States was launching more flybys to Mars and getting even more photos. In 1969 they launched Mariner 7 and it sent back 126 Mars photos. The Russians tried again with the M69 Number 522 and that blew up. They were just having no luck. The Americans were feeling their oats and in 1971 had Mariner 8 ready to go. This time it was to be an orbiter, but it wasn’t to be. The rocket failed to launch. In 1971 the Russians decided not to give up and launched M71 number 170, also known as Kosmos 419. This time the launch was successful, but it failed to get out of earth orbit. These failures must have been driving the Russians crazy. Nine days later they tried again with the M71 number 171, also known as Mars 2. It succeeded in orbiting Mars but the lander failed. Nine days later they tried again with M71 number 172, also known as Mars 3. Again, they got into Mars orbit but the lander failed. The Russians were not about to give up and in 1973 launched a flurry of Mars rockets. There was M73 number 52, known as Mars 4 which failed to enter Mars orbit. Next was M73 number 53 known as Mars 5. It entered orbit, but failed after a few weeks. Next M73 number 50 known as Mars 6, flew by Mars and landed capsized. Russia tried again with M73 number 51 the Mars 7 attempt but even though by Mars, the capsule missed the planet. Meanwhile the Americans were getting their act together and launched the Viking lander on Mars and were orbiting the planet and repeated this feat again with Viking 2. There was a long hiatus between Mars launches which lasted about 13 years. The Russians decided to launch 2 Mars rockets in July of 1988. They were the infamous Phobos missions. Phobos 1 failed on the way to Mars and we already discussed what happened to Phobos 2. In 1992 the United States launched the Mars Observer mission which failed and in 1996 launched the Mars Global Surveyor which was successful. Russia tried again that same year with the M1 Number 520, known as Mars 96. It didn’t make it out of orbit. Other countries had some successes and the United States had many and is still having them. The last Russian try for Mars was launched in 2011 and named Phobos Grunt. It never got out of earth orbit.
|
