Mars 1

Spacecraft design

Mars 1 was a modified Venera-type spacecraft, a cylinder 3.3 m long and 1 m in diameter, measuring 4 m across with solar panels and radiators deployed. The cylinder had two compartments: an upper 2.7 m orbital module containing guidance and on-board propulsion systems, and a lower 0.6 m experiment module holding scientific instrumentation. A 1.7 m parabolic high gain antenna, an omnidirectional antenna, and a semi-directional antenna provided communication. Power came from two solar panel wings with a total area of 2.6 sqm, affixed to opposite sides, and was stored in a 42 ampere-hour cadmium-nickel battery.

The spacecraft carried three primary radio systems operating at 1.6 meters, 32 centimeters, and in the centimeter range (5 and 8 centimeters). The 32-centimeter transmitter in the orbital module used a high-gain antenna, primarily transmitting on 922.76 MHz. A 1.6-meter transmitter linked with omnidirectional antennas on the solar panels operated on 183.6 MHz for downlink and likely near 102 MHz for uplink, serving as telemetry and backup communication.

The 8-centimeter transmitter in the experiment module was dedicated to television images, coherent with the 922.76 MHz link but at 3691.04 MHz. An impulse transmitter in the 5-centimeter band (around 5840-5890 MHz) used pulse-position modulation to transmit image data at about 90 pixels/sec, with average power consumption of 50 watts and peak power of 25 kilowatts per pulse. The station was initially programmed for automatic data transmission every two days, later adjusted to every five days after December 13, and could also be triggered by ground commands.

Did You Know?

• The probe recorded one micrometeorite strike every two minutes at altitudes from 6000 to 40000 km from Earth's surface due to the Taurids meteor shower.
• Magnetic field intensities of 3–4 nanoteslas with peaks as high as 6–9 nT were measured in interplanetary space.
• The radiation zones around Earth were detected and their magnitude confirmed.