Cool Stuff In Engineering No 6 — Do You Know How Many Vehicles Are On Mars?
Believe it or not, there’s more than just a few vehicles that made the trip from Earth to Mars. Even more surprising is that humans first made it to mars in 1971. Well, more like something we made ran into Mars. But the important thing is that we got there. Space is one of the most fascinating things to me and I love learning about it. So here’s some research I’ve been doing the last couple weeks about our history with visiting Mars.
First of all, I’ve learned a lot in this research and here are some things that would have helped me if I’d known them before I started this. Most of the trips to Mars, regardless of which country went there, consist of an orbiter and a lander. They both launch together and arrive in the Mars atmosphere at the same time. The orbiter hangs out in in space while the lander makes the trip down to the surface. The lander usually has a rover which can explore the planet once it lands.
One of the biggest engineering challenges seems to be getting the lander safely on the surface. A lot of the failures happen during this descent. Anyway, on with the vehicles.
USSR
The first vehicle to touch mars was called the Mars 2 and it was developed by the USSR. It was an unmanned vehicle which reached Mars orbit in March of 1971. The orbiter was able to gather data on the Marian atmosphere, landscape, temperature, gravity, and magnetic field.
The lander had a different story. It ultimately wound up crashing on the Mars surface due to a failure with the landing trajectory. Due to an improper approach angle, its parachute did not deploy as it was supposed to. Pretty cool to think this all happened in 1971 though.
Vikings
Only five years later, the first rover landed successfully on Mars. The NASA Viking program started in 1976 and was the United States first attempt at landing on Mars. The orbiter operated until 1980 and NASA believes it’s still in Mars orbit.
The Viking 1 lander reached the surface in July of 1976 and operated for an amazing 2245 sols. A sol is one day on Mars which is 39.58 minutes longer than an Earth day making it just short of 6 years of activity, a record until it was beaten by the Opportunity rover. Viking 1’s objective was to look for evidence of past life. It had an impressive array of recording equipment. One of Viking 1’s objectives was to analyze the composition of the Martian soil in hopes of finding organic material. Its findings have been questionable.
21 Years Later
It was another 21 years before another vehicle would make it to Mars. The United States Mars Pathfinder launched on December 4th, 1996 and landed on July 4th the following year. The Pathfinder actually just the lander. It was launched along with Sojourner, the first rover to operate on Mars.
Both Pathfinder and Sojourner outlasted their expected lives and provided a wealth of information. Together, they sent back over 17,000 images and conducted experiments providing evidence that Mars was once warm and wet.
A Grave Miscalculation
After Pathfinder and Sojourner, the next three attempts to learn more about Mars didn’t go that well. The U.S. launched the Mars Climate Orbiter in December of 1998. Its job was to look for water on mars, monitor the Martian atmosphere, and try to understand the history of the planet based on climate change. The Mars Climate Orbiter was also intended to be a communications relay for the next vehicle to land on Mars.
The problem happened once the spacecraft tried to enter the atmosphere of Mars. Calculations were carried out to bring the craft at an altitude of 110 kilometers of Mars while it performed an orbital insertion maneuver. If it descended any less than 80 kilometers in altitude, the conditions would be too harsh for the craft to survive.
Communication was lost with The Mars Climate Orbiter at 9:06 on September 23rd, 1999. The craft was determined to have reached 57 kilometers from Mars and disintegrated due to the atmospheric stresses. The problem was chased down to a simple miscommunication. Lockheed Martin developed software that calculated the impulse produced by firing the thrusters. NASA used this software to update the position of the Mars Orbiter. The problem was that the software was written using U.S. standard units whereas NASA specified it to use metric units. Because Lockheed had the units wrong, the wrong number was given to the spacecraft which ultimately led to its destruction.
Opportunity and Spirit!
In this writer’s opinion, Spirit and Opportunity more than made up for the failure of the Mars Climate Orbiter and the two that followed it. These amazing machines were launched in 2004 and the Opportunity rover is STILL going. My car is a 2004 and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to fix that thing. Opportunity is doing better and it’s on Mars.
It turns out I couldn’t quite find a straight answer as to why the mission was only planned for 90 days when the rovers were built so robustly. The best reason I can find is that NASA seemed to think the dust storms on Mars would diminish the rover’s ability for the solar panels to produce power. Thanks to some wind and a lot of luck, that seemed to not be the case.
Construction
Spirit and Opportunity aren’t your ordinary Mars rover. These rovers were built out of aluminum and titanium to withstand the 180-degree temperature swings the Martian atmosphere experiences every day. Each rover has its weight split up across six wheels designed to overcome rocky surfaces and steep hills. Even though Mars gets down to -157 degrees Fahrenheit at night, the rovers have heaters built in to keep cold-sensitive equipment operational.
Spirit
The Spirit rover, despite a weird programming anomaly that gave NASA a good scare, far exceeded its expected 90-day lifespan. It took the world’s first high-resolution image on another planet’s surface and carried out the first intentional grinding of a Martian rock. Spirit braved many close encounters, mostly due to power scares, but ultimately wound up getting stuck in some Martian soil. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory tried finding ways to get Spirit out by means of computer simulations and even a sandbox mockup of the situation but were unsuccessful. The rover was used in its stationary state for several more months until its last communication in March of 2010.
Opportunity
This rover is still going today. It had a couple close calls including being stuck in Martian sand for five weeks, a bum front wheel, and a close call with some dust covered solar panels. Opportunity has made a number of accomplishments on the surface of Mars including finding evidence of water by observing the minerals in rocks. It has made important astronomical findings and collected invaluable atmospheric information on Mars.
Space is something that has always intrigued me more than anything else. I can’t wait to see where we get with Mars during my lifetime.
