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Gotta love the reporting angle - it's not that Russians launched a Mars moon lander for crissake, the first major space exploration project for them in ages, bu

by eps 15y ago

Gotta love the reporting angle - it's not that Russians launched a Mars moon lander for crissake, the first major space exploration project for them in ages, but it's that they screwed up. Yay.

FrojoS 15y ago
From the article: It is arguably the most challenging unmanned interplanetary mission ever.
- Eurofooty 15y ago
  Risk v Reward
rbanffy 15y ago
There are a couple tons of hydrazine in the vehicle. That's very newsworthy by itself.
maaku 15y ago
Not that Russia screwing up a Mars missions should be newsworthy anyway.
- eps 15y ago
  Care to elaborate?
  - maaku 15y ago
    Russia has a very long history of failed Mars missions: http://flowingdata.com/2009/10/26/failed-space-missions-to-mars/ http://flowingdata.com/2009/10/26/failed-space-missions-to-m... Of the 20 missions launched by USSR/Russia so far (not counting Phobos-Grunt), 14 were absolute failures that didn't make it to Mars or return any data. 2 of the remaining 6 were orbiter-lander missions, and the lander either burned up in entry (Mars 2) or went silent after only 20 seconds of data on the ground (Mars 3). Their orbiters sent back around 60 images though, so they can be considered marginal successes. Mars 4 failed to achieve orbit, but somehow gets counted as a success by people who tally these things because they still managed to do at least some science as it zipped by. Mars 6 ceased transmission after 224 seconds, and what data it did send was near-useless due to degradation in the electronics. The last "successful" mission sent by the Soviets was Phobos 2 in 1988. It got some great data on the way in, but contact was lost as it approached it's ultimate target, Phobos. Mars 5 was the only hands-down, unqualified success of the entire program. (The only post-Soviet Russian mission to Mars, Mars 96, is counted among the 14 failures). 14 failures, 5 marginal "successes", and only 1 mission that achieved its objectives completely. I hope the people down-voting me didn't think I was being prejudiced or something. It's just the simple truth: with the Soviet/Russian Mars program, failure is the expected outcome. If Phobos-Grunt is lost, I would be greatly saddened, but hardly surprised.
hugh3 15y ago
Well what other reporting angle are you hoping for? They can hardly have an article which leads off with the launch and then mentions in paragraph eleven that "Oh, by the way, it's stuck in Earth orbit and will probably never get anywhere near Mars, sorry" On the other hand, it's a bit sad that there was barely any coverage of this prior to the launch. I'd heard of the lander, but had no idea it was scheduled for launch this year, let alone this week. Here's hoping they fix it.

by eps 15y ago

Gotta love the reporting angle - it's not that Russians launched a Mars moon lander for crissake, the first major space exploration project for them in ages, but it's that they screwed up. Yay.

FrojoS 15y ago

From the article: It is arguably the most challenging unmanned interplanetary mission ever.

Eurofooty 15y ago
Risk v Reward

rbanffy 15y ago

There are a couple tons of hydrazine in the vehicle. That's very newsworthy by itself.

maaku 15y ago

Not that Russia screwing up a Mars missions should be newsworthy anyway.

eps 15y ago
Care to elaborate?
- maaku 15y ago
  Russia has a very long history of failed Mars missions: http://flowingdata.com/2009/10/26/failed-space-missions-to-mars/ http://flowingdata.com/2009/10/26/failed-space-missions-to-m... Of the 20 missions launched by USSR/Russia so far (not counting Phobos-Grunt), 14 were absolute failures that didn't make it to Mars or return any data. 2 of the remaining 6 were orbiter-lander missions, and the lander either burned up in entry (Mars 2) or went silent after only 20 seconds of data on the ground (Mars 3). Their orbiters sent back around 60 images though, so they can be considered marginal successes. Mars 4 failed to achieve orbit, but somehow gets counted as a success by people who tally these things because they still managed to do at least some science as it zipped by. Mars 6 ceased transmission after 224 seconds, and what data it did send was near-useless due to degradation in the electronics. The last "successful" mission sent by the Soviets was Phobos 2 in 1988. It got some great data on the way in, but contact was lost as it approached it's ultimate target, Phobos. Mars 5 was the only hands-down, unqualified success of the entire program. (The only post-Soviet Russian mission to Mars, Mars 96, is counted among the 14 failures). 14 failures, 5 marginal "successes", and only 1 mission that achieved its objectives completely. I hope the people down-voting me didn't think I was being prejudiced or something. It's just the simple truth: with the Soviet/Russian Mars program, failure is the expected outcome. If Phobos-Grunt is lost, I would be greatly saddened, but hardly surprised.

hugh3 15y ago

Well what other reporting angle are you hoping for? They can hardly have an article which leads off with the launch and then mentions in paragraph eleven that "Oh, by the way, it's stuck in Earth orbit and will probably never get anywhere near Mars, sorry" On the other hand, it's a bit sad that there was barely any coverage of this prior to the launch. I'd heard of the lander, but had no idea it was scheduled for launch this year, let alone this week. Here's hoping they fix it.