How the Red Planet was conquered and what we managed to learn about it. Traffic on the Martian trail is increasing

Mars has captivated people ever since we first saw it as an object in the sky, which initially seemed to us a star, and a beautiful star, because it is red. In the 1st century, telescopes brought our gaze closer for the first time to its surface, full of intriguing patterns and landforms (XNUMX). Scientists initially associated this with the seething Martian civilization ...

1. Map of the surface of Mars in the XNUMXth century.

Now we know that there are no channels or any artificial structures on Mars. However, it has recently been suggested that 3,5 billion years ago this now dry, toxic planet could have been as habitable as Earth (2).

March it is the fourth planet from the Sun, just after Earth. It is only a little more than half the Earthand its density is only 38 percent. terrestrial. It takes more time to make a complete revolution around the Sun than the Earth, but it rotates around its axis at about the same speed. That's why A year on Mars is 687 Earth days.and a day on Mars is only 40 minutes longer than on Earth.

Despite its smaller size, the land area of ​​the planet is approximately equal to the area of ​​the Earth's continents, which means, at least theoretically. Unfortunately, the planet is currently surrounded by a thin atmosphere made up mostly of carbon dioxide and is unlikely to support life on earth.

Methane also periodically appears in the atmosphere of this parched world, and the soil contains chemicals that are toxic to life as we know it. Though there is water on mars, it is stuck in the planet's polar ice caps and hidden, perhaps in large quantities, under the surface of Mars.

2. Hypothetical appearance of Mars billions of years ago

Today, while scientists are exploring surface of mars (3), they see structures that are undoubtedly the work of long-running fluids—branching streams, river valleys, basins, and deltas. Observations show that the planet could once have had one vast ocean covering its northern hemisphere.

Elsewhere landscape of bears traces of ancient showers, reservoirs, rivers cutting through riverbeds on the ground. Probably, the planet was also shrouded in a dense atmosphere, which allowed water to remain in a liquid state at Martian temperatures and pressures. Sometime in the past, the planet is now supposed to have undergone a dramatic transformation, and a world that might once have been quite Earth-like became the parched wasteland that we explore today. Scientists are wondering what happened? Where did these streams go and what happened to the Martian atmosphere?

For now. Perhaps this will change in the next few years. NASA hopes the first humans will land on Mars in the 30s. We have been talking about such a schedule for about ten years. The Chinese are speculating about similar plans, but less specifically. Before embarking on these ambitious programs, let's try to take stock of half a century of human exploration of Mars.

More than half of the mission failed

Sending a Spaceship to Mars difficult, and landing on this planet is even more difficult. The rarefied Martian atmosphere makes getting to the surface a huge challenge. About 60 percent. Landing attempts throughout the decades of planetary exploration history have been unsuccessful.

So far, six space agencies have successfully reached Mars - NASA, the Russian Roscosmos and Soviet predecessors, the European Space Agency (ESA), the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), the Chinese agency, which not only hosted the orbiter, but also successfully landed and launched the rover , exploring the surface of the nave of Zhurong, and, finally, the space agency of the United Arab Emirates with the probe "Amal" ("Hope").

Since the 60s, dozens of spacecraft have been sent to Mars. First Ryad probe on mars bombarded the USSR. The mission included the first intentional passes and a hard (impact) landing (Mars, 1962).

First successful cruise around Mars occurred in July 1965 using NASA's Mariner 4 probe. March 2 i March 3 however, in 1971, the first with the rover on board crashed, and contact with March 3 it broke off as soon as it reached the surface.

Launched by NASA in 1975, the Viking probes consisted of two orbiters, each with a lander that successfully made a soft landing in 1976. They also conducted biological experiments on Martian soil to look for signs of life, but the results were inconclusive.

NASA continued Mariner program with another pair of Mariner 6 and 7 probes. They were placed in the next loading window and reached the planet in 1969. During the next loading window, Mariner again suffered the loss of one of its pairs of probes.

Mariner 9 successfully entered orbit around Mars as the first spacecraft in history. Among other things, he discovered that a dust storm was raging across the planet. His photographs were the first to provide more detailed evidence that liquid water could have once existed on the planet's surface. Based on these studies, it was also found that the area named Nothing Olympic is the highest mountain (more precisely, a volcano), which led to its reclassification as Olympus Mons.

There were many more failures. For example, the Soviet probes Phobos 1 and Phobos 2 were sent to Mars in 1988 to study Mars and its two moons, with a special focus on Phobos. Phobos 1 lost contact en route to Mars. Phobos 2although it successfully photographed Mars and Phobos, it crashed before the two landers hit Phobos' surface.

Also unsuccessfully US orbiter Mars Observer mission in 1993. Shortly thereafter, in 1997, another NASA observation probe, the Mars Global Surveyor, reported entering the orbit of Mars. This mission was a complete success, and by 2001 the entire planet had been mapped.

4. Life-size reconstructions of the Sojourner, Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity rovers with the participation of NASA engineers.

1997 also saw a major breakthrough in the form of a successful landing in the Ares Valley region and surface survey using Lazika NASA Sojourner as part of the Mars Pathfinder mission. In addition to scientific purposes, Mars Pathfinder Mission it was also a proof of concept for various solutions, such as the airbag landing system and automatic obstacle avoidance, which were later used in subsequent rover missions (4). However, before they arrived, there was another wave of Martian failures in 1998 and 1999, shortly after the success of Global Surveyor and Pathfinder.

It was unfortunate Japanese Nozomi orbiter missionas well as NASA orbiters Mars Climate Orbiter, Mars Polar Lander i penetrators Deep space 2with various failures.

European Space Agency Mars Express mission (ESA) reached Mars in 2003. On board was a Beagle 2 lander that was lost during a landing attempt and went missing in February 2004. Beagle 2 was discovered in January 2015 by the HiRise camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It turned out that he landed safely, but he failed to fully deploy the solar panels and antenna. Orbital Mars Express however, he made important discoveries. In 2004, he discovered methane in the planet's atmosphere and observed it two years later. polar stars.

In January 2004, two NASA rovers were named Spirit of Serbia (MER-A) I Possibility (MER-B) landed on the surface of Mars. Both far exceeded estimated Martian charts. Among the most significant scientific results of this program was strong evidence that liquid water existed at both landing sites in the past. Rover Spirit (MER-A) was active until 2010 when it stopped sending data because it got stuck in a dune and couldn't reorient itself to recharge its batteries.

Then Phoenix landed at the North Pole of Mars in May 2008 and was confirmed to have water ice. Three years later, the Mars Science Laboratory was launched aboard the Curiosity rover, which reached the surface of Mars in August 2012. We write about the most important scientific results of his mission in another article of this issue of MT.

Another unsuccessful attempt to land on Mars by the European ESA and the Russian Roscosmos was Lendaunik Schiaparelliwhich disconnected from the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter. The mission arrived on Mars in 2016. However, Schiaparelli, while descending, prematurely opened his parachute and crashed to the surface. However, he provided key data during a parachute descent, so the test was considered a partial success.

Two years later, another probe landed on the planet, this time stationary. Insightwho carried out a study that determined the diameter of the core of Mars. InSight measurements show that the diameter of the core of Mars is between 1810 and 1850 kilometers. This is almost half the diameter of the Earth's core, which is approximately 3483 km. At the same time, however, more than some estimates have shown, meaning that the Martian core is rarer than previously thought.

The InSight probe unsuccessfully tried to go deep into the Martian soil. Already in January, the use of the Polish-German "mole" was abandoned, i.e. thermal probe, which was supposed to go deep into the ground to measure the flow of thermal energy. The Mole encountered a lot of friction and did not sink deep enough into the ground. The probe is also listening seismic waves from inside the planet. Unfortunately, the InSight mission may not have enough time to make more discoveries. Dust collects on the device's solar panels, which means that InSight receives less power.

In recent decades movement in the orbit of the planet also systematically increased. Owned by NASA Mars Odyssey entered Mars orbit in 2001. Its mission is to use spectrometers and imaging devices to search for past or present evidence of water and volcanic activity on Mars.

In 2006, a NASA probe arrived in orbit. Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which was to conduct a two-year scientific survey. The orbiter began mapping the Martian landscape and weather to find suitable landing sites for upcoming lander missions. MRO took the first image of a series of active avalanches near the planet's north pole in 2008. The MAVEN orbiter arrived in orbit around the Red Planet in 2014. The objectives of the mission are mainly to determine how the planet's atmosphere and water have been lost during this time. of the year.

Around the same time, his first Martian orbital probe, Mars Orbit Mission (MAMA), also called Mangalyan, launch of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). It went into orbit in September 2014. India's ISRO has become the fourth space agency to reach Mars, after the Soviet space program, NASA and ESA.

5. Chinese all-terrain vehicle Zhuzhong

Another country in the Martian club is the United Arab Emirates. Belonging to them orbital apparatus Amal joined on February 9, 2021. A day later, the Chinese probe did the same. Tianwen-1, carrying the 240 kg Zhurong lander and rover (5), which successfully soft-landed in May 2021.

A Chinese surface explorer has joined three US spacecraft currently active and active on the planet's surface. Lazikov Curiosity i Perseverancewhich also landed successfully this February, and Insight. And if you count Ingenious flying drone released by the last US mission, separately, that is, human machines working on the surface of Mars at the moment five.

The planet is also explored by eight orbiters: Mars Odyssey, Mars Express, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Orbiter Mission, MAVEN, ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (6), Tianwen-1 orbiter and Amal. So far, not a single sample has been sent from Mars, and the landing approach to the moon of Phobos (Phobos-Grunt) during takeoff in 2011 was unsuccessful.

Fig. 6. Images of the surface of Mars from the CaSSIS instrument of the Exo Mars orbiter.

All this Martian research "infrastructure" continues to provide new interesting data on this issue. Red Planet. Recently, the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter detected hydrogen chloride in the Martian atmosphere. The results are published in the journal Science Advances. “Steam is needed to release chlorine, and hydrogen is needed by the by-product of water to form hydrogen chloride. The most important thing in these chemical processes is water,” he explained. Kevin Olsen from Oxford University, in a press release. According to scientists, the existence of water vapor supports the theory that Mars is losing large amounts of water over time.

Owned by NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter he also recently noticed something strange on the surface of Mars. He checks in with a boarding pass. HiRise camera a deep pit (7), which looks like a black dark spot with a diameter of about 180 meters. Further research turned out to be even more surprising. It turned out that loose sand lies at the bottom of the cavity, and it falls in one direction. Scientists are now trying to determine could the deep pit be connected to a network of underground tunnels left by fast flowing lava.

Scientists have long suspected that extinct volcanoes could be left behind large cave lava tubes on Mars. These systems may prove to be a very promising place for the future deployment of Martian bases.

What awaits the Red Planet in the future?

In the framework of the program ExoMars, ESA and Roscosmos plan to send the Rosalind Franklin rover in 2022 to search for evidence of the existence of microorganisms on Mars, past or present. The lander that the rover is supposed to deliver is called Kazachok. Same window in 2022 Mars orbit EscaPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Researchers) of the University of California at Berkeley are to fly with two spacecraft in one mission aimed at structure study, composition, Volatility i dynamics of the magnetosphere of Mars Oraz exit processes.

The Indian agency ISRO plans to follow up on its mission in 2024 with a mission called Mars Orbiter Mission 2 (MOM-2). It is possible that in addition to the orbiter, India will also want to send a rover to land and explore the planet.

Slightly less specific travel suggestions include the Finnish-Russian concept March MetNetwhich involves the use of many small meteorological stations on Mars to create an extensive network of observations to study the structure of the planet's atmosphere, physics and meteorology.

Mars-Grunt this, in turn, is the Russian concept of a mission aimed at deliver a sample of Martian soil to Earth. The ESA-NASA team developed the concept of a three Mars takeoff and return architecture that uses a rover to store small samples, a Mars climbing step to send them into orbit, and an orbiter to communicate with them over the air. Mars and return them to Earth.

Solar electric drive may allow one takeoff to return samples instead of three. The Japanese agency JAXA is also working on a mission concept called the MELOS rover. look for biosignatures existing life on Mars.

Of course there are more manned mission projects. US space exploration was set as a long-term goal in the space exploration vision announced in 2004 by then US President George W. Bush.

September 28, 2007 NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin stated that NASA aims to send a man to Mars by 2037. In October 2015, NASA released the official plan for human exploration and colonization of Mars. It was called Journey to Mars and was detailed by MT at the time. It is probably no longer relevant, since it provided for the use of the International Space Station in Earth orbit, and not the Moon, and the lunar station as an intermediate stage. Today there is more talk about returning to the Moon as a way to get to Mars.

He also appeared on the way Elon Mask and SpaceX with his ambitious and sometimes considered unrealistic plans for conventional missions to Mars for colonization. In 2017, SpaceX announced plans through 2022, followed by two more unmanned flights and two manned flights in 2024. Starship must have a load capacity of at least 100 tons. Several Starship prototypes have been successfully tested as part of the Starship development program, including one fully successful landing.

Mars is by far the most studied and known cosmic body after or equal to the Moon. Ambitious plans, up to colonization, are one, rather vague, prospect at the moment. What is certain, however, is that the movement back and forth surface of the red planet will grow in the coming years.