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In Rob Manning's book [0] : He explained how hard it is to land on Mars. It's nicely sum up in those two sentences : “There’s too much atmosphere on Mars to la
by tangue 10y ago
In Rob Manning's book [0] : He explained how hard it is to land on Mars. It's nicely sum up in those two sentences :
“There’s too much atmosphere on Mars to land heavy vehicles like we do on the moon, using propulsive technology completely,” said Manning, “and there’s too little atmosphere to land like we do on Earth. So, it’s in this ugly, grey zone.” [1]
The recent success of Curiosity, Spirit and Opportunity must not shadow the fact that most Mars missions have failed.
[0] "Mars Rover Curiosity: An Inside Account from Curiosity's Chief Engineer
[1] http://www.universetoday.com/7024/the-mars-landing-approach-getting-large-payloads-to-the-surface-of-the-red-planet/ http://www.universetoday.com/7024/the-mars-landing-approach-...
- smackfu 10y agoAlso it's pretty dusty, so doing a controlled burn all the way down (like SpaceX does on Earth) kicks up a huge dust cloud which settles on all your nice solar panels.
- haalcion3 10y agoTo give it some context, here are the Mars failures: Soviet Union/Russia: 1M No.1, 1M No.2, 2MV-4 No.1, 2MV-3 No.1, 2M No.521, 2M No.522, Kosmos 419 (3MS No.170), Mars 96 (M1 No.520), Mars 1 (2MV-4 No.2), Zond 2 (3MV-4A No.2), Mars 2 lander (SA 4M No.171), Prop-M Rover rover (SA 4M No.172), Mars 4 (3MS No.52S), Mars 5 (3MS No.53S), Mars 6 (3MP No.50P), Mars 7 (3MP No.51P), Fobos 1 (1F No.101), Fobos-Grunt US: Mariner 3, Mariner 8, Mars Observer, Mars Climate Orbiter, Mars Polar Lander, Deep Space 2 China: Yinghuo-1 UK/Europe: Beagle 2, Schiaparelli EDM lander Japan: Nozomi (PLANET-B) Also: Soviet Mars 3 lander (SA 4M No.172) landed, so counted as partial success, but contact lost 14.5 seconds later. And Soviet Fobos 2 (1F No.102) orbited successfully then lost communications during landing, so a partial success. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_Mars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_Mars
- sathackr 10y agoI don't think the atmosphere is the problem with landing heavy landers like we do on the moon. For some reason I think gravity is the main problem. The only effect I can think of the atmosphere would have is on engine efficiency, and it's so thin I doubt it's much of a consideration at all.