Soviet Union launched
series of unmanned spacecraft towards the Red Planet in their Mars
program to explore it. In 1960 the USSR has made two
attempts to send their spacecraft to Mars. The mission comprises of the series
of two unmanned spacecraft namely 1M No.1 launched on 10 October 1960 and
1M No.2 on 14 October 1960 to explore Mars. But unfortunately both were failed
even to reach earth orbit.
In 1962 USSR made three attempts
by initiating Mars 1 mission. The mission comprises of three unmanned
spacecraft namely Mars 2MV-4 No.1 also known as Sputnik 22, Mars
1 and 2MV-3 No.1 lunched on 24 October 1962, 1 November 1962
and 4 November 1962 respectively. Both 2MV-4 No.1 and 2MV-3 No.1 were
failed to leave the orbit of Earth due to problems in their carrier rockets. However,
Mars 1 was failed due to communications lost before first flyby.
In 1964 USSR made sixth attempt
to send spacecraft for exploration of Mars namely Zond-2. It was
launched on 30 November 1964 and was intended to survey Mars. But the mission
was failed due to lost communication before arrival in early May 1965.
Mars 2M
In 1969 Soviet Union launched
their sixth attempt mission using Proton-K rockets and orbiters namely
Mars 2M No.521 and Mars 2M No.522, which were known in the West as
Mars 1969A and B. The first was launched on 27 March 1969 and second on 2 April
1969 but unfortunately both were failed even to reach earth orbit.
Kosmos 419
It was also called 3MS
No.170 and was launched on 10 May 1971 but failed to leave earth orbit.
Mars 4M
Repeated failures didn’t
stand in front of USSR passion to explore the Red Planet. Soviet Union launched
Mars 4M mission consisted of series of two identical spacecraft Mars-2 and Mars-3 missions
both comprises of orbiters, attached landers and rovers.
Mars 2: It was launched on 19 May 1971 towards Mars, after travelling 6
months & 10 days the attached lander separated from the orbiter
successfully and entered the Mars atmosphere. But unfortunately the lander
performed crashed landing and got burnt due to system malfunctioned.
Mars 3: It was lunched on 28 May 1971 toward Mars, 10 days after the lunching of Mars 2. It reached the Mars orbit on 2 December 1971 and the lander became successful to made a safe landing on the surface of Mars. But after 20 seconds its stopped responding possibly as a result of the dust storms of Mars surface at the time of landing. However, the lander was still managed to transmit the first picture of Martian surface which was captured at the time landing. By this Mars 3 was become a pioneering mission that reach the surface of the Mars.
Although the lander
made crashed landings but their orbiters' still achieved their primary
scientific objectives by sending data about the Martian force of
gravity and magnetic fields, by which enable to reveals that how difficult
it is to land something on Mars. The images and data also helped in creation of
surface relief maps of Mars.
Mars 3MS
USSR wants to build its dormancy over USA in
space by sending series of its space missions to explore Mars by beating
the Mariner 8 and Mariner 9 spacecraft of USA.
Mars 4: The Mars 4 orbiter was
launched on 21 Jul 1973 by USSR and reached the orbit of Mars on 10 February
1974. It flew by the planet at a range of 2200 km and transmit one swath
of pictures and some radio comprised data which constituted the first detection
of the night side ionosphere on Mars.
Mars 5: The mission was launched on 25 Jul 1973 and reached the orbit of Mars
on 12 February 1974. It was entered into an oval shaped orbit of Mars and
synchronized with the rotation of the planet. It has two photo television
cameras (Vega and Zulfar) which could be commanded to take 12 pictures during
each close approach. The first, Vega was used a wide area 52mm lens with color
filters and the second, Zulfar camera used was a telescopic 350mm lens and
long-pass orange filter simultaneously. Images were transmitted at 880 or
1760-line resolution and finally the mission was ended due to loss of
pressurization in the transmitter.
Mars 3MP
Mars 6: Soviet Union launched Mars 6 also known as 3MP No. 50P
successfully on 5 August 1973. It was first launched, into an intermediate
Earth orbit and then launched into a Mars transfer trajectory. It reached the
orbit of Mars on 12 March 1974. The bus separated successfully from descent
module at a distance of 48,000 km from Mars. The descent module entered
the Martian atmosphere at a speed of 5.6 km/s. The parachute opened to
slowed down its speed to 600 m/s. During this time the craft was
accumulating data and transmitting it directly to the bus for immediate
communicate to Earth. Unfortunately, the contact with the descent module was
lost near the surface of the Mars. The descent module communicated 224 seconds
of data before transmissions was ceased. This data was the first returned from
the atmosphere of Mars. But most of the data was unreadable due to a
malfunction in a transistor.
Mars 7: USSR launched Mars 7 also known as 3MP No. 51P successfully on 9
August 1973. It was also first launched, into an intermediate Earth orbit and
then launched into a Mars transfer trajectory. It reached the orbit of Mars on
9 March 1974. The mission was failed due to a malfunction in the operation of
one of the on-board systems which resulted in to premature separation of the
landing probe prematurely (4 hours before completion) and resultantly missed
the planet by 1300 km. Most probably the early separation was due to a
computer error.
Mars 4NM and 5NM
The Mars 4NM and Mars
5NM projects of USSR were designed for sample return mission using
N1 rockets for launched and rovers onto the surface of Mars but N1 rockets
failed on all four of its test flights.
Phobos Missions
Phobos 1: It was launched on 7 July 1988 consisted of an unmanned
spacecraft. Its mission was to explore Mars and its
moons namely Phobos and Deimos. However, the 200 days Phobos
1 mission was failed on 2 September 1988 without achieving its main
scientific objectives due to a computer malfunction but it confirmed the
previously complied information about Mars.
Phobos 2: It was launched on 12 July 1988 which reached the orbit of Mars
on 29 January 1989 and also known to be the last spacecraft designed by
the Soviet Union to explore the moons of
Mars, Phobos and Deimos. It communicated 37 images of 40 meters’
resolution after thorough investigation of Mars surface and its atmosphere.
On 27 March 1989 the
Phobos 2 mission was failed due to single lost with the craft due to
on-board computer malfunction.
Mars 96
It was also known
as Mars-8 consisted of one Orbiter Penetrators, two Landers and two
Penetrators. It was launched on 16 November 1996 to investigate Mars but failed
to leave the earth’s orbit 17 November 1996. It was the first Russian based
mission after the fall Soviet Union.
Fobos-Grunt / Yinghuo-1
The Fobos-Grunt or Phobos-Grunt
was Russian spacecraft and the Yinghuo-1 was Chines Spacecraft for Mars
exploration. This joint mission of Russian and China was launched on 8
November 2011, after a landmark space co-operation agreement
signed on 26 March 2007 between the countries for exploration of Mars.
Fobos-Grunt consisted
of an Orbiter Phobos, a sample return mission to Phobos, one of the
moons of Mars and Yinghuo-1, the first chines spacecraft comprises an
orbiter which was intended to visit Mars' moon Phobos. The mission was
declared failed on 6 February 2012 because of a programming error which led to
a simultaneous reboot of two working channels of an onboard computer and
resulted into connection lost on 24 November 2011.
ExoMars (Exobiology on Mars)
Project
ExoMars is a joint
collaboration project for exploration of the Red Planet ‘Mars’. This contract
was signed in August 2009 between Russian Federal Space Agency (now
Roscosmos) and ESA (European Space Agency).
Trace Gas Orbiter
(TGO) is a part of joint project namely ExoMars 2016
and TGO is consisted of an atmospheric research orbiter which
was sent with European-led ExoMars programme on 14 March 2016. The
Trace Gas Orbiter entered the Mars orbit on 19 October 2016 and still
functional. It communicated first image on 18 June 2018.
Suspension of ExoMars Project
After ExoMars 2016
mission the project is delayed or suspended due to financial issues and as well
as some or more USA influence on ESA.
In January 2016 the
authorities were announced suspension of the mission till 2018 due financial issues.
But in May 2016 it was announced by ESA that mission would launch in 2020 due
to delays in the deliveries of the scientific payload.
On 12 March 2020 the
authorities announced the delay of mission due to travel restrictions during
the COVID-19 pandemic and was being launch in 2022.
On 26 February 2022 Russia launched its
military invasion on Ukraine and USA imposed sanctions on Russia. As result on
28 February 2022 authorities announced the delay of mission due these sanctions
which further led to permanent suspension of ExoMars rover project on 17 Mar
22. In July 2022 the ESA’s Director General
Josef Aschbacher officially announced the termination of ExoMars
Project. He said.
The ESA has been considering working more closely with NASA moving forward since it became clear the agency needed “to sever” its ties with Russia.