MOSCOW, Oct. 16 -. RIA Novosti Today probe "exomars" will arrive in the vicinity of Mars and begin the procedure of rapprochement with the red planet and separates itself from the landing platform Schiaparelli, a prototype Mars rover "Pasteur", and Wednesday will begin to study the mysteries of Mars. RIA "Novosti" tells about the past and future of the study of Mars Russia.
A Martian thorns to the stars
Fate decreed that Mars became, in spite of the red planet is extremely unfriendly to the Soviet Union and Russia. In the first decade of the "space age," from 1960 to 1970, Soviet scientists and design engineers have tried to send to the red planet just eight probes, neither of which has not reached Mars.
The first five sets of series 1M, and WW2, launched in 1960 and 1962 and have not been able to take off from the ground, or have failed in its orbit. Their goal was to obtain the first images of Mars, studying its atmosphere and even in search of living beings on the surface. A similar fate awaited a series of probes 3mV and M-69, only one of which - the Mars-1 - was launched on the convergence course with Mars, but lost in 4 months after the start of the mission.
For this reason, the honor of receiving the first images and collected the first scientific data about Mars fell American probes from the series "Mariner", built and launched much later. The Soviet Union tried to catch up until the early 1970's, when in the "Mars" program to the red planet was simultaneously sent to phones Mars 2 and Mars 3.
This automatic stations successfully reach Mars, but bad weather conditions on the red planet prevented the normal landing descent research units, which bore the brunt of the Mars 2 and Mars 3.However, Lander Mars-3 was able to successfully land on the surface of Mars for the first time in the history of space exploration, and for 20 seconds passed pictures of the red planet. Sami probes worked in orbit for about a year and have gathered a lot of interesting scientific information.
Then began a new series of setbacks, which is actually still ongoing. In 1973, Mars was sent four apparatus - probes Mars-4 and Mars 5, and Lendery Mars 6 and Mars 7. All these missions ended in failure - Mars 4 flew past Mars, Mars-5 is faulty within 10 days after reaching orbit, communication with Mars-6 was lost after 150 seconds after entering the atmosphere, and Mars-7 also missed the planet .
More, in fact, the Soviet Union to Mars did not fly - only in 1988 to Phobos, a satellite of Mars, were sent to a pair of probes Phobos 1 and Phobos-2, one of the most ambitious space projects of the USSR, created with the participation of the European Space Agency and 14 foreign countries. Unfortunately, like previous Russian Mars mission, he fails - Phobos-1 is out of order even before the approach to Mars, and Phobos 2 mysteriously broke down when the approached the moon, Mars at about one thousand kilometers.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has made two more unsuccessful attempts to learn the secrets of Mars - the device "Peace-96" was burned in the atmosphere due to a failure in the upper stage, and the infamous "Phobos-Grunt" has failed in orbit in December 2011 and I burned out after two months of desperate attempts to save him in the middle of January 2012.
New Hope
A new chance to break the "curse of Mars" appeared in Russia in February 2012, when NASA announced its withdrawal from the project "exomars" - a project of the European Space Agency on the establishment of an orbital module and rover - because of deep cuts in the budget of the agency conducted Barak administration Obama.
A year later, the Federal Space Agency and ESA have signed an agreement under which Russia became a full member of both missions. TGO on the probe, which will arrive at Mars on Tuesday, October 19 has two Russian instrument - FREND neutron detector and spectrometer ACS. The second part of the mission - the rover, "Pasteur" - will be equipped with Russian scientific instruments, and landing platform for him to create the NPO. Lavochkin
The task "Pasteur" - geological research and search for traces of life around the landing site, and the probe will study the traces of the rare substances in the atmosphere of Mars and search for deposits of water ice, as well as told RIA "Novosti" Vadim Krasnopolskiy, look for possible signs of life in the distribution methane on Mars.
TGO probe was successfully sent into space in March this year, and this weekend, and in the first days of next week comes the critical phase in his life - closer to Mars, landing demonstration platform "Schiaparelli" on which the ESA scientists want to work out the details of the landing " Pasteur ", and access to the orbit of the red planet.
The first steps in this important process has already been made - Friday TGO probe made last maneuver that brought it to the rendezvous trajectory with Mars.The trajectory of the flight of the probe as telemetry showed was so successful that the "pilots" of the mission had to be adjusted TGO speed of just 1 centimeter per second. Such high precision engineers have been able to achieve thanks to the original navigation system that uses quasars - the bright nuclei of distant galaxies - as radioorientirov.
On Sunday, about 17 hours 40 minutes Moscow time, the module "Schiaparelli" separate from the probe, unwind and start an independent journey to Mars. If he fails, for whatever reason, leave in the "free floating", this operation can be repeated on Monday.
Early in the morning of Monday TGO will start a maneuver that will enable him to take a higher orbit of Mars, and two days later, 19 October, about four o'clock in the evening, he will come to a stable orbit around the red planet. The maneuver to enter the orbit will last 139 minutes, and his unsuccessful completion will lead to the fact that "exomars" repeat the fate of the Mars-4 and Mars-7.
Out TGO into orbit occurs almost simultaneously with the planting of "Schiaparelli", which will start at five o'clock in Moscow (17-42 MSK) and takes approximately eight minutes. If completed successfully, the following three-month mission engineers and scientists will spend on testing and the gradual inclusion of TGO devices.
Then, starting from March 2017, TGO will slowly decrease, slowing himself by means of air streams in the Martian atmosphere, gradually descending to an altitude of 400 kilometers from the surface. Such a maneuver, the so-called "air brake", ESA has already sold in the last months of the probe "Venus Express", which significantly prolong his life. The first scientific satellite data, scientists plan to get only at the end of December this year.
"Eight minutes of terror"
On the other hand, the pictures that will receive the "Schiaparelli" during boarding and after landing on Mars, we will see on Thursday. In addition to the solution of engineering problems, "Schiaparelli" also perform a number of scientific challenges.
Planting "Schiaparelli", like all other Mars missions will be carried out in the equatorial regions of the planet, in the Meridiani Planum, where in 2004 he successfully sat on the Mars rover Opportunity. This plateau is considered to be the bottom of an ancient Martian lakes, the study of which using the tool "Schiaparelli" can give us new information about the habitability of Mars in the past.
In particular, the weather station DREAMS will be for a few days to monitor the weather by measuring temperature, humidity, pressure, the number of the p dust, and for the first time in the history of planetary science will study the electrical properties of the Martian atmosphere.
Some experiments aboard the "Schiaparelli" will start before the completion of landing - for example, AMELIA instrument will monitor changes in pressure, temperature and composition of the Martian atmosphere from an altitude of 130 kilometers and up to the surface of Mars.
planting process will be filmed on camera DECA, which will receive 15 high-quality images at the time of landing.Thus, we get the first competitor for the movie, which NASA calls "seven minutes of terror": rover Curiosity landing process, MARDI shot on camera.
During the landing process, in addition to the tools of the "Schiaparelli", will also keep the European probe "Mars Express", studying the red planet since 2003. He collected data as scientists hope, will help to improve the design of the rover's "Pasteur" and safely deliver its maximum and Russian landing platform on the surface of Mars that definitively dispel "Martian curse" hanging over Russia.
