Mars 7
Soviet Mars lander that failed to enter the Martian atmosphere.
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Mars 7 (Марс-7), also designated 3MP No.51P, was a Soviet spacecraft launched in 1973 as the final mission of the Mars programme. It consisted of a lander and a coast stage intended to study Mars, but a malfunction caused the lander to miss the planet. Both the lander and the coast stage remain in heliocentric orbit.
Spacecraft
The Mars 7 lander carried a thermometer, barometer, accelerometer, radio altimeter, and a mass spectrometer for surface analysis. The coast stage (bus) was equipped with a magnetometer, plasma traps, cosmic ray and micrometeoroid detectors, stereo antennae, and an instrument to study solar proton and electron fluxes. Built by Lavochkin, Mars 7 was the second of two 3MP landers launched in 1973, after Mars 6. Two orbiters, Mars 4 and Mars 5, launched earlier in the same window, were to relay data; Mars 4 failed to orbit and Mars 5 failed after a few days.
Launch
Mars 7 launched on a Proton-K carrier rocket with a Blok D upper stage from Baikonur Cosmodrome Site 81/24 at 17:00:17 UTC on 9 August 1973. After the first three stages placed the spacecraft and upper stage into low Earth parking orbit, the Blok D fired to send Mars 7 into heliocentric orbit toward Mars. A course correction was performed on 16 August 1973. The lander separated from the flyby bus on 9 March 1974 after an initial failure to separate; a retrorocket failure caused the probe to miss the Martian atmosphere, flying past with a closest approach of 1300 km. Known transistor faults were blamed for this failure and that of Mars 4.
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Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Mars 7 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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