Russian engineers involved in sending the Soviet mission “Mars” in the 1970-ies, found the common features of past failures with boarding “Schiaparelli”
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Mars has again proven to be “unfriendly” to the European interplanetary spacecraft. The fate of the lander Schiaparelli (“list”) ExoMars (ExoMars), which on Wednesday evening reached the red planet’s surface, were unknown and a day later. The signal received from the device during the descent, interrupted for 50 seconds to touch the Martian surface. The picture reminded me of Russian engineers a situation in which hit in 1974, the Russian spacecraft “Mars-6″.
Many are already “buried” “Schiaparelli”, considering it was originally a small time of work on Mars (from 2 to 10 days), there is nothing to hope for its resuscitation. But the flight Director of mission Andrea Accomazzo from the European space Agency (ESA) said that the experts are going to wait for information about “Schiaparelli” with orbiters orbiting Mars, to the last, that is, until the end of October.
“This reminds us of the search for the spacecraft “Beagle” or “FILA,” our “Schiaparelli” a little”, — said the scientist at the press conference in Darmstadt, remembering failures in landing on Mars in 2003-m to year on the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014.
Recall that the “Schiaparelli” was to get to Mars on 19 October at 17.48 UTC. He successfully entered the atmosphere, opened the brake parachute, after some time, turn on the engines soft landing… “the Engine is definitely turned on, we saw included a few seconds – said Accomazzo, but their work was much shorter than expected. I am not able to say if all of them joined staff, we have not yet processed all the information…”.
While the Europeans understand all the details of the descent, we asked our engineers having large experience in launching spacecraft on Mars in the 70-ies of the last century. The Martian surface of them reached only the “Mars-2″ and “Mars 3″ in 1971 and “Mars-6″ in 1974. But more or less successful of them can only be considered “Mars-3″, which made the first soft landing and within 14 seconds transmit information about itself to the Ground.
- Landing “Schiaparelli” is very similar to the landing of our “Mars-6″ – told us one of the employees in the NPO. Lavochkin, who was then working in a group flight control apparatus. We after that failed mission could only assume, which broke contact with him just a few seconds before touch the surface. According to one version, he spun and broke the antenna, and can, as in the previous runs failed Voronezh transistors. They were staffed, and radio systems, and on-Board computers, and very often they would fail. In particular, the following, “Mars-7″ flew past the red planet only because time has not turned on the engine for braking.
as for the “Schiaparelli”, on his hard landing, according to our experts, in addition to damage to the antenna could also affect a large overload when opening the parachute. If after the “debriefing” in the ESA will come to this conclusion, it is possible that a future mission will fly to Mars already with insurance.
Comments doctor of physico-mathematical Sciences, head of the laboratory space gamma spectroscopy space research Institute Igor MITROFANOV
- If, to ascertain the reasons for the failure of plantings in our apparatus we only had indirect evidence, “Schiaparelli” them favorably — he transferred to Earth information about the planting process. Apparently, something happened on Board during those 50 seconds to touch the soil, which told of Accomazzo. It is very important that before that time, our colleagues obtained the data from the device. It was installed the gauge VHF, and at the time of landing it all the telemetry data transmitted to the flying orbital module TGO, and Mars Express. It was not just a “blind” landing, and the landing, which was monitoriruemye until the very last moment. In fact, a symptom of the accident was the termination of the transmission of the data.
that was supposed to make the camera module during the descent, “Schiaparelli” is also “managed” to transfer to the orbital module?
- I Think the photos still will not. We hope for purely technical information about the accelerations, speeds at various stages of the landing.
Details of this accident, the Europeans will share it with you?
- Accurately answer this question, I can’t. Often the developers are keeping the details of their technological decisions for yourself. But as the next phase of the project “Eczemas” in 2020, we will be doing that together, I hope that Europeans will be more open with our engineers to secure the future mission.
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