Russian Mars Missions Planned |
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Written by spacetravel.org
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Saturday, 25 June 2005 17:59 |
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Russia is planning two uncrewed Mars missions: a mission to the moon Phobos in 2009 and a mission to Mars itself in 2015. The 2009 mission would involve orbiting Mars and then landing on Phobos, where a rover would roam for three years, collecting soil samples. A lander would arrive directly on Mars in the 2015 mission.
Theoretically, it should be easier to land on Mars moons because a probe would only have to move alongside another orbiting object, rather than decelerate rapidly through the planets atmosphere. It would also require less fuel for a sample return mission to escape the gravity of a moon, rather than the gravity of Mars.
Russia has sent 17 probes to Mars since 1960; only three were unqualified successes. Two missions were dispatched to Phobos in 1988. One failed on the way. The other got into orbit around Mars, but a computer glitch prevented it from deploying a lander to the surface. Russias most recent attempt to send a mission to Mars was in 1996, but the orbiter could not get out of Earth orbit. Phobos is only 9000 kilometers above the surface of Mars. From that vantage point, a spacecraft could make detailed measurements of Mars. Phobos is likely to have pieces of Mars on it, which could be collected and studied. When large meteorites crash into Mars, they kick up rocks and soil. The finest particles are launched into orbit around Mars, and then some of them are swept up by Phobos.
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