Planetary race
6 August surface of Mars touched the Curiosity research apparatus. The MSL project (Mars Science Laboratory - Martian Science Laboratory) has aroused great interest from the broad masses. The excitement about the flight of Curiosity can be compared only with the reaction to the flights of the Soviet "Lunokhod". For a number of reasons, the Soviet Union and Russia have not yet been able to send a self-propelled research station to the Red Planet, but so far our country owns many other achievements related to the "planetary race." So, our country is still leading in the number of celestial bodies on which domestic equipment landed.
An account of the visited celestial bodies was opened on September 14 1959, when the Soviet automatic station Luna-2 reached the surface of the natural satellite of the Earth and made a hard landing. The scientific equipment of the station was relatively simple. However, during the flight all the planned studies were carried out, and a memorable pennant with the coat of arms of the USSR was delivered to the moon. In addition, the Soviet space industry once again showed its potential - before the Moon-2, not a single device landed on the surface of other planets and satellites. After the “Moon-2”, before the 1977 program was closed, another 13 of the Soviet automatic stations reached the surface of the Moon and executed the research program, in whole or in part. The Luna-17 and Luna-21 devices are also known for delivering the Lunokhod-1 and Lunokhod-2 self-propelled research complexes to the Earth satellite, respectively. It is worth noting that the "Lunokhod-1" was the world's first rover, successfully landed on the surface of a celestial body.
The main and only competitor of the Soviet Union in space exploration, the United States, was able to send its apparatus to the surface of the Moon much later. So, the station Ranger 4 touched the surface of the satellite only in April of 62. In addition, all the devices of the program "Ranger" was not intended for a soft landing. They made measurements and took pictures of the surrounding space only until a collision with the solid surface of the satellite occurred. The first American soft landing on the moon, during which the equipment did not suffer, took place only in the 1966 year. At the beginning of June, the American Surveyor 1 unit successfully sunk into the Flemsteed crater. It is worth noting that even here the American device could not be the first - on January of the same year, the Soviet automatic station Luna-31 made a soft landing on the satellite. As for self-propelled vehicles, in this area the Americans, too, have lagged behind for several months. Their first lunar car, the LRV, intended for the transportation of astronauts, became part of the Apollo 9 expedition equipment and was tested in real conditions only at the end of July 15, eight months later, Lunokhod-1971.
As you can see, the only "win" of the United States in the moon race applies only to manned flights to the moon. One can argue long about the quantitative and qualitative balance of achievements, but it is better to turn to stories exploring other celestial bodies, such as Venus. For a number of reasons, the United States has never considered Venus as a space research priority. Therefore, the first flight of the automatic station near this planet was carried out by the apparatus of the Soviet development. In May, 1961, the station "Venus-1" passed about a hundred thousand kilometers from the planet. During this phase of the flight due to technical reasons there was no communication with the station. A bit more successful was the flight of the American station Mariner 2. In December, 1962, she passed three times less distance from Venus and managed to gather a number of information. In particular, evidence was obtained of a number of hypotheses regarding the Venusian atmosphere. Starting from the station "Venus-3", almost all Soviet vehicles of this program were intended for descent into the atmosphere. However, at the time of the creation of the third station of the series, several things were not known about the gas envelope of the planet. Therefore, the Venus-3 descent vehicle was quickly destroyed by an aggressive environment. In the future, this feature of the second planet from the Sun was taken into account and began to take measures to protect the equipment of the descent stations as much as possible. Thanks to all the changes, the Venus-5 and Venus-6 stations in January 1969 were able to descend to a relatively small height above the surface, collecting information on the composition, density and other parameters of the Venusian atmosphere during the descent. At the same time, both stations collapsed at an altitude of about 15-20 kilometers or less. Data transmission was stopped when a height of about 18 kilometers was reached.
The first descent to the surface of Venus took place on December 15 70 th. The descent vehicle of the Venus-7 station spent about 53 minutes in the atmosphere of the planet, after which the signal disappeared. It took about half an hour to descend with this parachute, after which the descent vehicle transmitted temperature data for 20 minutes. While entering the Venusian atmosphere, a transmitting telemetry switch failed, as a result of which only information about the ambient temperature was sent to Earth. The remaining sensors, apparently, functioned, but the signal did not pass. Before 1981, seven more automatic stations were sent to Venus to descend to the surface. In 1972, Venus-8 took soil samples, and in the summer of 75, the ninth and tenth stations of the series sent the first black and white photographs of the surface to Earth. In 81, the Venus-13 station recorded sound and color panoramic television from the landing site.
We have to admit that the Americans still managed to land their apparatus on the surface of Venus. In November, the 1978 of the year from the spacecraft Pioneer Venus Multiprobe (often the name “Pioneer-Venus-2”) undocked three descent vehicles designed for atmospheric research. According to the original plans, all four mini-stations were supposed to collapse in the atmosphere, but one of the vehicles was able to reach the surface of the planet and transmitted information from there for about an hour. This unforeseen development of events greatly surprised NASA employees, and also helped to obtain a number of information about the lower atmosphere, which was planned to be studied much later. For a number of reasons of an economic, technical and political nature, the Pioneer-Venus-2 remained the latest automatic spacecraft of the American production, which was intended for Venus research.
The next target of the Earth cosmonautics was the fourth planet of the solar system. It so happened that a lot of legends, literary works, etc. are connected with Mars. However, the study of the Red Planet turned out to be much more difficult than it seemed to the dreamers and writers. In the beginning of the Martian program again the first was the Soviet Union. In October 1960, the automatic station Mars-1960А was launched. Unfortunately, at the fifth minute of the flight, a missile equipment failure occurred and a command was sent to self-destruct. Just four days later, a new booster rocket was launched from Baikonur, on which the Mars-1960B was located, almost the same as the previous one. This time the launch also ended in an accident - because of problems with the rocket engine, the spacecraft burned down in the atmosphere. In the autumn of 62, two more stations were launched to explore Mars, one of which was successful. A few days after the loss of the Mars-1962A apparatus, the Mars-1 successfully entered the Earth orbit. On the approach to Mars, a number of systems failed at the station, due to which the flight program was far from complete. Only information that could be obtained at a relatively large distance from Mars went to Earth.
The United States joined Mars exploration only in 1964. In November, two stations were immediately sent to the Red Planet: the Mariner 3 and the Mariner 4. The first approach to the goal was not able to reset the casing-fairing and deploy solar panels. As a result, the device was left without power supply. In the summer of 65, the next Mariner successfully approached Mars and took some photos. Data transmission to Earth continued until the beginning of October of the same year, when the station went out of the “field of view” of ground receiving and transmitting equipment. Now 3 and 4 “Mariners” rotate in heliocentric orbit. The next flyby of Mars by American vehicles occurred in the summer of 1969. Automatic stations Mariner 6 and Mariner 7 passed near the planet, measured a number of important parameters, and also took a total of a fifth of the surface. After the shooting, they also entered a heliocentric orbit.
Until a certain time, the entire study of Mars was reduced to sending automatic stations that were supposed to fly near the planet. In the fall and winter of 1971, the explorations of the Red Planet finally took the form of a real race. With a difference of several weeks, three important events occurred. 14 November NASA announced that their Mariner 9 station had successfully entered Mars orbit. Mariner 9 was the first spacecraft to become an artificial satellite of another planet. On November 27 of the same year, the descent vehicle was undocked from the Soviet Mars-2 automatic station. He was supposed to land on the surface of the planet and conduct a series of studies that are impossible when flying past Mars or in its orbit. The main unit of Mars-2 went into orbit of the planet, and the descent module began maneuvering for landing. Due to errors in programming the descent, a crash occurred: the descent vehicle entered the atmosphere at an excessively large angle, as a result of which it did not have time to brake and crashed. In this “original” manner, the descent vehicle became the first object on Mars that is of terrestrial origin. A pennant USSR was attached to the station building. On December 2, the second landing module was dropped from the Mars-3 space station. He nominally entered the landing path and carried out the first soft landing on Mars. According to the program, the descent vehicle began to transfer the image of the panorama of the landing site. For unidentified reasons, the photograph was a fuzzy image with barely noticeable lines. After about 15-20 seconds after the start of the transfer, the descent vehicle stopped transmitting the signal. Disconnection and loss of the automatic station led to the disruption of one interesting project. On board both descent vehicles were so-called. cross-country apparatuses on Mars (PrOP-M). Miniature vehicles (weight 4,5 kg and dimensions no more than 22-25 cm) were supposed to “walk” on the surface of the Red Planet, using the principle of walking excavator movement. The objective of PrOP-M was to collect information about the nature of the Martian surface and the allowable loads on it. Due to the collapse of one descent vehicle and the disconnection of another PROP-M, they were not planted on Martian soil and did not measure. It is worth noting that with a favorable set of circumstances, mini-mars rovers would become the first self-propelled equipment on Mars.
Further studies of Mars by scientists of both superpowers went with varying success. Successful and unsuccessful missions followed one after another, which greatly hampered the study of the planet. At the same time, almost all the major achievements in the study of Mars have already been “dismantled”. There was only a successful project of the rover. Since the end of the eighties, NASA has expanded its work on this topic. The result of the development was the launch of the Delta II launch vehicle, which took place on December 4 1996. The payload of the rocket was the Mars Pathfinder, which included a descent module and the Sojourner rover. 4 July next year, the descent vehicle safely landed on the surface of the Red Planet. The mission resulted in 17 collecting thousands of photographs of the Martian landscape and 15 soil analyzes.
In January, 2004, two self-propelled vehicles — Spirit and Opportunity — were “landed” on Mars at once. The Mars Exploration Rover research program, during which the landing of two rovers was carried out, implied a series of geological analyzes, as well as the search for evidence of the existence of liquid water on Mars. By now, all the objectives of the program have been fulfilled, and in addition a record has been set for the duration of the planetary rover. Instead of the originally planned three months, the Spirit rover has worked for more than six years, and the Opportunity is still in operation.
It is worth noting that all American projects of rovers were created after the end of the Cold War. There are several explanations for this interesting fact. The most plausible of them concerns the “pumping” of the space industry, which achieved the greatest results already after the need for constant advancing of overseas competitors was no longer necessary. In addition, the lack of competition led to the fact that on board the Curiosity rover are measuring instruments and research equipment produced in different countries, including in Russia. This fact clearly illustrates one obvious thesis: space exploration should be conducted jointly by all developed countries. In addition, as practice shows, joint projects, for some strange reason, turn out to be a little more successful than “our own”.
This approach to the implementation of space programs helps to significantly simplify the work on the development and assembly of spacecraft. Given the complexity and high cost of delivering automatic stations to other planets, this will be useful. On the other hand, the incentive to develop their own projects disappears - joint achievements may not be as pleasant and useful in terms of propaganda as their own. At the same time, the ever-increasing cost of space programs leaves no choice. It is possible that in the very near future there will be no large and serious non-military space projects in the world that will be conducted by countries alone. Therefore, the past achievements of the Cold War may be the latest historical events that will belong to one country, and not to the scientific and technical community. Although, we have to admit, it is very pleasant to realize that it was your country that first sent a man into space, flew over the Earth’s satellite or planet, and also sent her automatic station to it first.
On the materials of the sites:
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/
http://federalspace.ru/
http://infuture.ru/
http://novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/
http://laspace.ru/
http://novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/
http://inosmi.ru/
http://astronaut.ru/
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/
Mars rover Curiosity on Mars
An account of the visited celestial bodies was opened on September 14 1959, when the Soviet automatic station Luna-2 reached the surface of the natural satellite of the Earth and made a hard landing. The scientific equipment of the station was relatively simple. However, during the flight all the planned studies were carried out, and a memorable pennant with the coat of arms of the USSR was delivered to the moon. In addition, the Soviet space industry once again showed its potential - before the Moon-2, not a single device landed on the surface of other planets and satellites. After the “Moon-2”, before the 1977 program was closed, another 13 of the Soviet automatic stations reached the surface of the Moon and executed the research program, in whole or in part. The Luna-17 and Luna-21 devices are also known for delivering the Lunokhod-1 and Lunokhod-2 self-propelled research complexes to the Earth satellite, respectively. It is worth noting that the "Lunokhod-1" was the world's first rover, successfully landed on the surface of a celestial body.
The main and only competitor of the Soviet Union in space exploration, the United States, was able to send its apparatus to the surface of the Moon much later. So, the station Ranger 4 touched the surface of the satellite only in April of 62. In addition, all the devices of the program "Ranger" was not intended for a soft landing. They made measurements and took pictures of the surrounding space only until a collision with the solid surface of the satellite occurred. The first American soft landing on the moon, during which the equipment did not suffer, took place only in the 1966 year. At the beginning of June, the American Surveyor 1 unit successfully sunk into the Flemsteed crater. It is worth noting that even here the American device could not be the first - on January of the same year, the Soviet automatic station Luna-31 made a soft landing on the satellite. As for self-propelled vehicles, in this area the Americans, too, have lagged behind for several months. Their first lunar car, the LRV, intended for the transportation of astronauts, became part of the Apollo 9 expedition equipment and was tested in real conditions only at the end of July 15, eight months later, Lunokhod-1971.
As you can see, the only "win" of the United States in the moon race applies only to manned flights to the moon. One can argue long about the quantitative and qualitative balance of achievements, but it is better to turn to stories exploring other celestial bodies, such as Venus. For a number of reasons, the United States has never considered Venus as a space research priority. Therefore, the first flight of the automatic station near this planet was carried out by the apparatus of the Soviet development. In May, 1961, the station "Venus-1" passed about a hundred thousand kilometers from the planet. During this phase of the flight due to technical reasons there was no communication with the station. A bit more successful was the flight of the American station Mariner 2. In December, 1962, she passed three times less distance from Venus and managed to gather a number of information. In particular, evidence was obtained of a number of hypotheses regarding the Venusian atmosphere. Starting from the station "Venus-3", almost all Soviet vehicles of this program were intended for descent into the atmosphere. However, at the time of the creation of the third station of the series, several things were not known about the gas envelope of the planet. Therefore, the Venus-3 descent vehicle was quickly destroyed by an aggressive environment. In the future, this feature of the second planet from the Sun was taken into account and began to take measures to protect the equipment of the descent stations as much as possible. Thanks to all the changes, the Venus-5 and Venus-6 stations in January 1969 were able to descend to a relatively small height above the surface, collecting information on the composition, density and other parameters of the Venusian atmosphere during the descent. At the same time, both stations collapsed at an altitude of about 15-20 kilometers or less. Data transmission was stopped when a height of about 18 kilometers was reached.
The first descent to the surface of Venus took place on December 15 70 th. The descent vehicle of the Venus-7 station spent about 53 minutes in the atmosphere of the planet, after which the signal disappeared. It took about half an hour to descend with this parachute, after which the descent vehicle transmitted temperature data for 20 minutes. While entering the Venusian atmosphere, a transmitting telemetry switch failed, as a result of which only information about the ambient temperature was sent to Earth. The remaining sensors, apparently, functioned, but the signal did not pass. Before 1981, seven more automatic stations were sent to Venus to descend to the surface. In 1972, Venus-8 took soil samples, and in the summer of 75, the ninth and tenth stations of the series sent the first black and white photographs of the surface to Earth. In 81, the Venus-13 station recorded sound and color panoramic television from the landing site.
We have to admit that the Americans still managed to land their apparatus on the surface of Venus. In November, the 1978 of the year from the spacecraft Pioneer Venus Multiprobe (often the name “Pioneer-Venus-2”) undocked three descent vehicles designed for atmospheric research. According to the original plans, all four mini-stations were supposed to collapse in the atmosphere, but one of the vehicles was able to reach the surface of the planet and transmitted information from there for about an hour. This unforeseen development of events greatly surprised NASA employees, and also helped to obtain a number of information about the lower atmosphere, which was planned to be studied much later. For a number of reasons of an economic, technical and political nature, the Pioneer-Venus-2 remained the latest automatic spacecraft of the American production, which was intended for Venus research.
The next target of the Earth cosmonautics was the fourth planet of the solar system. It so happened that a lot of legends, literary works, etc. are connected with Mars. However, the study of the Red Planet turned out to be much more difficult than it seemed to the dreamers and writers. In the beginning of the Martian program again the first was the Soviet Union. In October 1960, the automatic station Mars-1960А was launched. Unfortunately, at the fifth minute of the flight, a missile equipment failure occurred and a command was sent to self-destruct. Just four days later, a new booster rocket was launched from Baikonur, on which the Mars-1960B was located, almost the same as the previous one. This time the launch also ended in an accident - because of problems with the rocket engine, the spacecraft burned down in the atmosphere. In the autumn of 62, two more stations were launched to explore Mars, one of which was successful. A few days after the loss of the Mars-1962A apparatus, the Mars-1 successfully entered the Earth orbit. On the approach to Mars, a number of systems failed at the station, due to which the flight program was far from complete. Only information that could be obtained at a relatively large distance from Mars went to Earth.
The United States joined Mars exploration only in 1964. In November, two stations were immediately sent to the Red Planet: the Mariner 3 and the Mariner 4. The first approach to the goal was not able to reset the casing-fairing and deploy solar panels. As a result, the device was left without power supply. In the summer of 65, the next Mariner successfully approached Mars and took some photos. Data transmission to Earth continued until the beginning of October of the same year, when the station went out of the “field of view” of ground receiving and transmitting equipment. Now 3 and 4 “Mariners” rotate in heliocentric orbit. The next flyby of Mars by American vehicles occurred in the summer of 1969. Automatic stations Mariner 6 and Mariner 7 passed near the planet, measured a number of important parameters, and also took a total of a fifth of the surface. After the shooting, they also entered a heliocentric orbit.
Mars-3 station descent vehicle
Until a certain time, the entire study of Mars was reduced to sending automatic stations that were supposed to fly near the planet. In the fall and winter of 1971, the explorations of the Red Planet finally took the form of a real race. With a difference of several weeks, three important events occurred. 14 November NASA announced that their Mariner 9 station had successfully entered Mars orbit. Mariner 9 was the first spacecraft to become an artificial satellite of another planet. On November 27 of the same year, the descent vehicle was undocked from the Soviet Mars-2 automatic station. He was supposed to land on the surface of the planet and conduct a series of studies that are impossible when flying past Mars or in its orbit. The main unit of Mars-2 went into orbit of the planet, and the descent module began maneuvering for landing. Due to errors in programming the descent, a crash occurred: the descent vehicle entered the atmosphere at an excessively large angle, as a result of which it did not have time to brake and crashed. In this “original” manner, the descent vehicle became the first object on Mars that is of terrestrial origin. A pennant USSR was attached to the station building. On December 2, the second landing module was dropped from the Mars-3 space station. He nominally entered the landing path and carried out the first soft landing on Mars. According to the program, the descent vehicle began to transfer the image of the panorama of the landing site. For unidentified reasons, the photograph was a fuzzy image with barely noticeable lines. After about 15-20 seconds after the start of the transfer, the descent vehicle stopped transmitting the signal. Disconnection and loss of the automatic station led to the disruption of one interesting project. On board both descent vehicles were so-called. cross-country apparatuses on Mars (PrOP-M). Miniature vehicles (weight 4,5 kg and dimensions no more than 22-25 cm) were supposed to “walk” on the surface of the Red Planet, using the principle of walking excavator movement. The objective of PrOP-M was to collect information about the nature of the Martian surface and the allowable loads on it. Due to the collapse of one descent vehicle and the disconnection of another PROP-M, they were not planted on Martian soil and did not measure. It is worth noting that with a favorable set of circumstances, mini-mars rovers would become the first self-propelled equipment on Mars.
Further studies of Mars by scientists of both superpowers went with varying success. Successful and unsuccessful missions followed one after another, which greatly hampered the study of the planet. At the same time, almost all the major achievements in the study of Mars have already been “dismantled”. There was only a successful project of the rover. Since the end of the eighties, NASA has expanded its work on this topic. The result of the development was the launch of the Delta II launch vehicle, which took place on December 4 1996. The payload of the rocket was the Mars Pathfinder, which included a descent module and the Sojourner rover. 4 July next year, the descent vehicle safely landed on the surface of the Red Planet. The mission resulted in 17 collecting thousands of photographs of the Martian landscape and 15 soil analyzes.
In January, 2004, two self-propelled vehicles — Spirit and Opportunity — were “landed” on Mars at once. The Mars Exploration Rover research program, during which the landing of two rovers was carried out, implied a series of geological analyzes, as well as the search for evidence of the existence of liquid water on Mars. By now, all the objectives of the program have been fulfilled, and in addition a record has been set for the duration of the planetary rover. Instead of the originally planned three months, the Spirit rover has worked for more than six years, and the Opportunity is still in operation.
It is worth noting that all American projects of rovers were created after the end of the Cold War. There are several explanations for this interesting fact. The most plausible of them concerns the “pumping” of the space industry, which achieved the greatest results already after the need for constant advancing of overseas competitors was no longer necessary. In addition, the lack of competition led to the fact that on board the Curiosity rover are measuring instruments and research equipment produced in different countries, including in Russia. This fact clearly illustrates one obvious thesis: space exploration should be conducted jointly by all developed countries. In addition, as practice shows, joint projects, for some strange reason, turn out to be a little more successful than “our own”.
This approach to the implementation of space programs helps to significantly simplify the work on the development and assembly of spacecraft. Given the complexity and high cost of delivering automatic stations to other planets, this will be useful. On the other hand, the incentive to develop their own projects disappears - joint achievements may not be as pleasant and useful in terms of propaganda as their own. At the same time, the ever-increasing cost of space programs leaves no choice. It is possible that in the very near future there will be no large and serious non-military space projects in the world that will be conducted by countries alone. Therefore, the past achievements of the Cold War may be the latest historical events that will belong to one country, and not to the scientific and technical community. Although, we have to admit, it is very pleasant to realize that it was your country that first sent a man into space, flew over the Earth’s satellite or planet, and also sent her automatic station to it first.
On the materials of the sites:
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/
http://federalspace.ru/
http://infuture.ru/
http://novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/
http://laspace.ru/
http://novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/
http://inosmi.ru/
http://astronaut.ru/
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/
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