Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant documents that can help answer the question.
Query: What was the first spacecraft to land on Mars?
The first to contact the surface were two Soviet probes: Mars 2 lander on November 27 and Mars 3 lander on December 2, 1971—Mars 2 failed during descent and Mars 3 about twenty seconds after the first Martian soft landing.[16] Mars 6 failed during descent but did return some corrupted atmospheric data in 1974. [17] The 1975 NASA launches of the Viking program consisted of two orbiters, each with a lander that successfully soft landed in 1976. Viking 1 remained operational for six years, Viking 2 for three. The Viking landers relayed the first color panoramas of Mars.[18]
The Electra communications package is a UHF software-defined radio (SDR) that provides a flexible platform for evolving relay capabilities. It is designed to communicate with other spacecraft as they approach, land, and operate on Mars. In addition to protocol controlled inter-spacecraft data links of 1 kbit/s to 2 Mbit/s, Electra also provides Doppler data collection, open loop recording and a highly accurate timing service based on a 5e−13 USO. Doppler information for approaching vehicles can be used for final descent targeting or descent and landing trajectory recreation. Doppler information on landed vehicles will also enable scientists to accurately determine the surface location of Mars landers and rovers. The two Mars Exploration Rover spacecraft currently on Mars utilize an earlier generation UHF relay radio providing similar functions through the Mars Odyssey orbiter. The Electra radio has proven its functionality by relaying information to and from the MER spacecraft, "Phoenix" Mars lander and "Curiosity" Rover.
The USSR intended to have the first artificial satellite of Mars beating the planned American Mariner 8 and Mariner 9 Mars orbiters. In May 1971, one day after Mariner 8 malfunctioned at launch and failed to reach orbit, Cosmos 419 (Mars 1971C), a heavy probe of the Soviet Mars program M-71, also failed to launch. This spacecraft was designed as an orbiter only, while the next two probes of project M-71, Mars 2 and Mars 3, were multipurpose combinations of an orbiter and a lander with small skis-walking rovers that would be the first planet rovers outside the Moon. They were successfully launched in mid-May 1971 and reached Mars about seven months later. On November 27, 1971 the lander of Mars 2 crash-landed due to an on-board computer malfunction and became the first man-made object to reach the surface of Mars. On 2 December 1971, the Mars 3 lander became the first spacecraft to achieve a soft landing, but its transmission was interrupted after 14.5 seconds.[45]
The spacecraft they live in on the journey to Mars does the flyby, but the crew separates and goes into a lander. The Excursion module's ascent stage must rejoin the main spacecraft before it gets too far away. An advantage is that the resources needed for Earth return don't have to enter and leave Mars orbit, but the ascent stage has to perform space rendezvous in solar orbit and the time on Mars is constrained by the need to this. Mars cyclers orbit the Sun in such a way as to pass by Mars and the Earth on regular intervals, performing Mars flybys on regular intervals. The crews would live on the stations during the interplanetary voyages. The concept for Flyby Excursion Landing Module is that a lander and flyby would separate in solar orbit, the lander would accelerate to get to Mars first, then land on Mars meanwhile the other segment does a Mars flyby, then the lander takes off and rendezvous with the flyby segment transferring the crew over. (see also Mars Excursion Module (MEM))
A Mars landing is a landing of a spacecraft on the surface of Mars. Of multiple attempted Mars landings by robotic, unmanned spacecraft, eight have been successful. There have also been studies for a possible human mission to Mars, including a landing, but none have been attempted.
The most recent landing took place on November 26th, 2018 by the NASA probe InSight.
The Mars 4M spacecraft; Mars 2 and Mars 3 missions consisted of identical spacecraft, each with an orbiter and an attached lander, which became the first spacecraft to reach the surface of Mars.
The Orion EM-2 mission has a mission design that would include a lunar flyby.In regards to Mars flybys, a related concept is a Mars flyby rendezvous, where a spacecraft does not enter orbit but rendezvous before or after a flyby of the planet with another spacecraft. Mars flyby rendezvous was evaluated at NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center in the 1960s. At that time NASA developed designs for a combination of a Mars lander, short-stay surface habitat, and ascent vehicle called a Mars Excursion Module (MEM); the ascent stage performed the rendezvous with another spacecraft that did a flyby of Mars without entering orbit or landing. Compared to MOR, a flyby rendezvous means one spacecraft does not have to orbit Mars, so the resources needed on a return journey to Earth are not taken in and out of Mars orbit for example. (See also Mars cycler)
The "Beagle 2" lander objectives were to characterize the landing site geology, mineralogy, and geochemistry, the physical properties of the atmosphere and surface layers, collect data on Martian meteorology and climatology, and search for possible signatures of life. However, the landing attempt was unsuccessful and the lander was declared lost. A Commission of Inquiry on "Beagle 2" identified several possible causes, including airbag problems, severe shocks to the lander's electronics which had not been simulated adequately before launch, and problems with parts of the landing system colliding; but was unable to reach any firm conclusions. The spacecraft's fate remained a mystery until it was announced in January 2015 that NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, using HiRISE, had found the probe intact on the surface of Mars. It was then determined that an error had prevented two of the spacecraft's four solar panels from deploying, blocking the spacecraft's communications. Beagle 2 was the first British and first European probe to achieve a landing on Mars.
Farah Alibay is based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and is a Payload Systems Engineer on the "InSight" mission, a robotic lander spacecraft designed to study the interior of the planet Mars which lifted off to Mars in May 2018. Before the launch, Farah was responsible for the proper integration and testing of all the instruments on the spacecraft. While the mission waited for the spacecraft to land on the surface of Mars, Farah helped the teams prepare for operations and tested the detector equipment. To celebrate the landing on Mars in November 2018, she had her hair dyed red to match Mars and the InSight logo.
The lander's fate remained a mystery until it was located intact on the surface of Mars in a series of images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.[66][67] The images suggest that two of the spacecraft's four solar panels failed to deploy, blocking the spacecraft's communications antenna. Beagle 2 is the first British and first European probe to achieve a soft landing on Mars.
In 2016, SpaceX announced plans to fly its earliest missions to Mars using its Falcon Heavy launch vehicle prior to the completion, and first launch, of any ITS vehicle. Later missions utilizing this technology—the "ITS launch vehicle" and "Interplanetary Spaceship" with on-orbit propellant refill via "ITS tanker"—were to begin no earlier than 2022. At the time, the company was planning for launches of research spacecraft to Mars using Falcon Heavy launch vehicles and specialized modified Dragon spacecraft, called "Red Dragon". Due to planetary alignment in the inner Solar System, Mars launches are typically limited to a window of approximately every 26 months. As announced in June 2016, the first launch was planned for Spring 2018, with an announced intent to launch again in every Mars launch window thereafter. In February 2017, however, the first launch to Mars was pushed back to 2020, and in July 2017, SpaceX announced it would not be using a propulsively-landed "Red Dragon" spacecraft at all for the early missions, as had been previously announced.
The key element of the infrastructure is the BFR, a two-stage rocket where the upper stage is also used as spacecraft to reach Mars and to return to Earth. To achieve a large payload, the spacecraft first enters Earth orbit, where it is refuelled before it departs to Mars. After landing on Mars, the spacecraft is loaded with locally produced fuel to return to Earth. The expected payload of BFR is to Mars.
In 2012, a conceptual architecture was published by Boeing, United Launch Alliance, and RAL Space in England, laying out a possible design for a crewed Mars mission. Components of the architecture include various spacecraft for the Earth-to-Mars journey, landing, and surface stay as well as return. Some features include several uncrewed cargo landers assembled into a base on the surface of Mars. The crew would land at this base in the "Mars Personnel Lander", which could also take them back into Mars orbit. The design for the crewed interplanetary spacecraft included artificial gravity and an artificial magnetic field for radiation protection. Overall, the architecture was modular and to allow for incremental R&D.
Elon Musk and SpaceX have proposed the development of Mars transportation infrastructure in order to facilitate the eventual colonization of Mars. The design includes fully reusable launch vehicles, human-rated spacecraft, on-orbit propellant tankers, rapid-turnaround launch/landing mounts, and local production of rocket fuel on Mars via in situ resource utilization (ISRU). SpaceX's aspirational goal is to land the first humans on Mars by 2024.
Mars has a surface gravity 0.38 times that of Earth, and the density of its atmosphere is about 0.6% of that on Earth. The relatively strong gravity and the presence of aerodynamic effects make it difficult to land heavy, crewed spacecraft with thrusters only, as was done with the Apollo Moon landings, yet the atmosphere is too thin for aerodynamic effects to be of much help in aerobraking and landing a large vehicle. Landing piloted missions on Mars would require braking and landing systems different from anything used to land crewed spacecraft on the Moon or robotic missions on Mars.
The spacecraft was successfully deployed from the "Mars Express" on 19 December 2003 and was scheduled to land on the surface of Mars on 25 December; however, no contact was received at the expected time of landing on Mars. ESA declared the mission lost in February 2004, after numerous attempts to contact the spacecraft were made.
A number of American space exploration pioneers were launched from CCAFS, including the first U.S. Earth satellite in 1958, first U.S. astronaut (1961), first U.S. astronaut in orbit (1962), first two-man U.S. spacecraft (1965), first U.S. unmanned lunar landing (1966), and first three-man U.S. spacecraft (1968). It was also the launch site for all of the first spacecraft to (separately) fly past each of the planets in the Solar System (1962–1977), the first spacecraft to orbit Mars (1971) and roam its surface (1996), the first American spacecraft to orbit and land on Venus (1978), the first spacecraft to orbit Saturn (2004), and to orbit Mercury (2011), and the first spacecraft to leave the Solar System (1977). Portions of the base have been designated a National Historic Landmark for their association with the early years of the American space program.
The mission was projected to cost $350 million USD and to meet a cost cap of no more than $425 million USD, not including the launch cost. It must have a March 1, 2016 launch date requirement (or no later than December 31, 2016) to land during the Mars southern summer. In order to reduce the cost and minimize risk, the spacecraft concept is based on a previous spacecraft design, the Mars Phoenix lander, which has a demonstrated flight heritage that incorporates soft landing capability and incorporates a restartable rocket propulsion system, suitable to be repurposed for this mission requirements. The spacecraft would land at a target landing area near the south pole of Mars, where geysers exist over a stretch of several hundred kilometers with densities of at least one geyser every and have the ability to "hop" at least twice from its landed location after a summertime landing to reposition itself close to a geyser site, and wait through the winter until the first sunlight of spring to witness first-hand the Martian geyser phenomenon and investigate the debris pattern and channel.
Mars 2MV-3 No.1 also known as Sputnik 24 in the West, was a Soviet spacecraft, which was launched in 1962 as part of the Mars program, and was intended to land on the surface of Mars. Due to a problem with the rocket which launched it, it did not depart low Earth orbit, and it decayed several days later. It was the only Mars 2MV-3 spacecraft to be launched.
Mars 3 was an unmanned space probe of the Soviet Mars program which spanned the years between 1960 and 1973. Mars 3 was launched May 28, 1971, nine days after its twin spacecraft Mars 2. The probes were identical robotic spacecraft launched by Proton-K rockets with a Blok D upper stage, each consisting of an orbiter and an attached lander. After the Mars 2 lander crashed on the martian surface, Mars 3 lander became the first spacecraft to attain soft landing on Mars on 2 December 1971. It failed shortly after landing.The type of Orbiter was the Variant M-71 of the Bus/Obiter 4M-V. The primary purpose of the orbiter was to study the topography of the surface; analyze its soil composition; measure various properties of the atmosphere; monitor "solar radiation, the solar wind, and the interplanetary and martian magnetic fields". In addition, it served as a "communications relay to send signals from the lander to Earth".
A Mars flyby is a movement of spacecraft passing in the vicinity of the planet Mars, but not entering orbit or landing on it. Unmanned space probes have used this method to collect data on Mars, as opposed to orbiting or landing. A spacecraft designed for a flyby is also known as a "flyby bus" or "flyby spacecraft".
Years earlier, in 1970 Soviet Union began the design of Mars 4NM and Mars 5NM missions with superheavy unmanned Martian spacecraft. First was Marsokhod with planned date of start in 1973 and second was Mars sample return mission planned for 1975. Both spacecraft were intended to be launched on the N1 superrocket, but this rocket never flew successfully and the Mars 4NM and Mars 5NM projects were cancelled.
"Phoenix" launched on August 4, 2007, and touched down on the northern polar region of Mars on May 25, 2008. It is famous for having been successfully photographed while landing, since this was the first time one spacecraft captured the landing of another spacecraft onto a planetary body (the Moon not being a planet, but a satellite).
In this listing, it is implied that each mission left debris according to its design. For example, the "Schiaparelli" EDM lander likely exploded on impact, creating an unknown number of fragments at one location. At another location, there may be a lower heat shield, and at another location, a parachute and upper heat shield. Another example is the counterweights ejected by MSL during its descent. In some cases, the nature and location of this additional debris has been determined and, in other cases, even the location of the main spacecraft has remained unknown. The identification of "Beagle 2" after 11 years is one of the greatest breakthroughs yet, since prior to that, it could not be confirmed what had happened. Spacecraft that have not been precisely located include "Mars 2", "Mars 3", "Mars 6", Mars Polar Lander, and the two Deep Space 2 probes.Several landing sites have been named, either the spacecraft itself or the landing site:
The first use of airbags for landing were Luna 9 and Luna 13, which landed on the Moon in 1966 and returned panoramic images. As with later missions, these would use the airbags to bounce along the surface, absorbing landing energy. The Mars Pathfinder lander employed an innovative airbag landing system, supplemented with aerobraking, parachute, and solid rocket landing thrusters. This prototype successfully tested the concept, and the two Mars Exploration Rover Mission landers employed similar landing systems. The Beagle 2 Mars lander also tried to use airbags for landing, the landing was successful and the lander touched down safely, but several of the spacecraft's solar panels failed to deploy, thereby disabling the spacecraft.