Mariner 9
JPL | |
COSPAR ID | 1971-051A |
---|---|
SATCAT no. | 5261 |
Mission duration | 1 year, 4 months and 26 days[1] |
Spacecraft properties | |
Manufacturer | Jet Propulsion Laboratory |
Launch mass | 997.9 kilograms (2,200 lb) [2] |
Dry mass | 558.8 kilograms (1,232 lb) |
Power | 500 watts |
Start of mission | |
Launch date | May 30, 1971, 22:23:04 | UTC
Rocket | Cape Canaveral |
End of mission | |
Disposal | Decommissioned |
Deactivated | October 27, 1972 |
Decay date | Around October 2022 |
Orbital parameters | |
Reference system | Areocentric |
Eccentricity | 0.6014 |
Periareion altitude | 1,650 km (1,030 mi) |
Apoareion altitude | 16,860 km (10,480 mi) |
Inclination | 64.4 degrees |
Period | 11.9 hours / 719.47 minutes |
Epoch | 29 December 1971, 19:00:00 UTC[3] |
UTC | |
Mariner 9 (Mariner Mars '71 / Mariner-I) was a
After the occurrence of dust storms on the planet for several months following its arrival, the orbiter managed to send back clear pictures of the surface. Mariner 9 successfully returned 7,329 images over the course of its mission, which concluded in October 1972.[5]
Objectives
Mariner 9 was designed to continue the atmospheric studies begun by
Under original plans, a dual mission was to be flown like Mariners 6–7, however the launch failure of Mariner 8[6] ruined this scheme and forced NASA planners to fall back on a simpler one-probe mission. NASA still held out hope that another Mariner probe and Atlas-Centaur could be readied before the 1971 Mars launch window closed. A few logistical problems emerged, including the lack of an available Centaur payload shroud of the correct configuration for the Mariner probes, however there was a shroud in NASA's inventory which could be modified. Convair also had an available Centaur stage on hand and could have an Atlas readied in time, but the idea was ultimately abandoned for lack of funding.
Mariner 9 was mated to Atlas-Centaur AC-23 on May 9 with investigation into Mariner 8's failure ongoing. The malfunction was traced to a problem in the Centaur's pitch control servoamplifier and because it was not clear if the spacecraft itself had been responsible, RFI testing was conducted on Mariner 9 to ensure the probe was not releasing interference that could cause problems with the Centaur's electronics. All testing came back negative and on May 22, a tested and verified rate gyro package arrived from Convair and was installed in the Centaur.
Liftoff took place on May 30 at 22:23:04 UT.[7] All launch vehicle systems performed normally and the Mariner separated from the Centaur at 13 minutes and 18 seconds after launch.
Instruments
- Ultraviolet Spectrometer (UVS)
- Infrared Interferometer Spectrometer (IRIS)
- Celestial Mechanics (not a separate instrument; it relied upon tracking measurements including range, range rate, and Doppler)
- S-Band Occultation (not a separate instrument; experiment observed the attenuation of the communication signal as the orbiting satellite passed out of view)
- Infrared Radiometer (IRR)
- Visual Imaging System – in a lower orbit, half that of
Spacecraft and subsystems
The power for the spacecraft was provided by a total of 14,742 solar cells, being distributed between 4 solar panels, which in total resulted in 7.7 meters of solar panels being present in the spacecraft. The solar panels produced a 500 watts in the orbit of Mars, the energy was stored in a 20 amp-hr nickel-cadmium battery.[3]
Propulsion was provided by the RS-2101a engine, which could produce 1340 N thrust, and in total could have 5 restarts. The engine was fueled by monomethyl hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide. For atittude control, the spacecraft contained 2 sets of 6 nitrogen jets on the tip of the solar panels. Attitude knowledge was provided by a Sun sensor, a Canopus star tracker, gyroscopes, an inertial reference unit, and an accelerometer. The thermal control was achieved by the use of louvers on the eight sides of the frame and thermal blankets.[3]
Achievements
Mariner 9 was the first
After 349 days in orbit, Mariner 9 had transmitted 7,329 images, covering 85% of Mars' surface, whereas previous flyby missions had returned less than one thousand images covering only a small portion of the planetary surface.[11] The images revealed river beds, craters, massive extinct volcanoes (such as Olympus Mons, the largest known volcano in the Solar System; Mariner 9 led directly to its reclassification from Nix Olympica), canyons (including the Valles Marineris, a system of canyons over about 4,020 kilometres (2,500 mi) long), evidence of wind and water erosion and deposition, weather fronts, fogs, and more.[12] Mars' small moons, Phobos and Deimos, were also photographed.[13][14]
The findings from the Mariner 9 mission underpinned the later Viking program.[8]
The enormous Valles Marineris canyon system is named after Mariner 9 in honor of its achievements.[8]
After depleting its supply of attitude control gas, the spacecraft was turned off on October 27, 1972.[8]
Construction
The
The Infrared Interferometer Spectrometer (IRIS) team was led by Dr. Rudolf A. Hanel from
The Infrared Radiometer (IRR) team was led by Professor Gerald Neugebauer from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).[17]
Error-correction codes achievements
To control for errors in the reception of the
Since the flown hardware was constrained with regards to weight, power consumption, storage, and computing power, some considerations had to be put into choosing an FEC, and it was decided to use a
Present location
This section needs to be updated.(April 2023) |
As of February 2022, Mariner 9's location is unknown; it is either still in orbit, or has already burned up in the Martian atmosphere or crashed into the surface of Mars.
NASA has provided multiple dates for when Mariner 9 could enter the Martian atmosphere. In 2011, NASA predicted that Mariner 9 would burn up or crash into Mars around 2022.[21] However, a 2018 revision to the Mariner 9 mission page by NASA expected Mariner 9 would crash into Mars "sometime around 2020".[22] At the time of the mission, Mariner 9 was left in an orbit that would not decay for at least 50 years, which placed the earliest date of atmospheric entry to October 2022.[3] By August 2023, it is likely that Mariner 9 entered the Martian atmosphere and either burned up or impacted the surface.
See also
- Exploration of Mars
- List of Mars orbiters
- List of missions to Mars
- Space exploration
- Timeline of artificial satellites and space probes
- Uncrewed space missions
- Mars flyby
References
- ^ "Mariner 9". NASA's Solar System Exploration website. Retrieved September 28, 2023.
- ^ "Mariner 9". NASA's Solar System Exploration website. Retrieved November 30, 2022.
- ^ National Space Science Data Center. Retrieved December 28, 2011. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
- ^ a b "Mariner Mars 1971 Project Final Report" (PDF). NASA Technical Reports Server. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2022-10-09. Retrieved December 28, 2011.
- ^ "NASA Programs & Missions Historical Log". Archived from the original on 2014-11-13. Retrieved 2011-12-12.
- ^ "Mariner 8 (Mariner H) - Mars Missions - NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory". NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Retrieved 2023-12-20.
- ^ "In Depth | Mariner 09". NASA Solar System Exploration. Retrieved 2022-03-08.
- ^ a b c d e
Pyle, Rod (2012). Destination Mars. ISBN 978-1-61614-589-7.
It was the first spacecraft to enter orbit around another world. ... [It] continues to orbit Mars to this day, sailing around the planet deaf and dumb in the cold darkness.
- ^ "Missions - Mariner 6 & 7". www2.jpl.nasa.gov. Retrieved 2023-12-20.
- ^ "Mariner 9 - NASA Science". science.nasa.gov. Retrieved 2023-12-20.
- ^ NASA.gov
- ^ "Mariner 9: First Spacecraft to Orbit Mars". Space.com. 8 November 2018.
- ^ Mars Exploration Program: Mariner 8 & 9
- ^ Hartmann, W. O. Raper. 1974. The New Mars. The Discoveries of Mariner 9. With the Cooperation of the Mariner 9 Science Experiment Team. Prepared for the NASA Office of Space Science.
- ^ "Ultraviolet Spectrometer (UVS)". nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov. Retrieved 2024-02-23.
- ^ "Infrared Interferometer Spectrometer (IRIS)". nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov. Retrieved 2024-02-23.
- ^ "Infrared Radiometer (IRR)". nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov. Retrieved 2024-02-23.
- ^ [1] 64 Shades of Martian Grey – Computerphile
- ^ [2] Reed-Muller Code (64 Shades of Grey pt2) – Computerphile
- ^ [3] Archived 2013-09-27 at the Wayback Machine Combinatorics in Space The Mariner 9 Telemetry System
- ^ "This Month in NASA History: Mariner 9 | APPEL Knowledge Services". appel.nasa.gov. Retrieved 2022-02-21.
- ^ "In Depth | Mariner 09". NASA Solar System Exploration. Retrieved 2022-02-21.
External links
- Mariner 9 Mission Profile by NASA's Solar System Exploration
- NSSDC Master Catalog: Spacecraft – Mariner 9
- NASA-JPL Guide to Mariner 9
- some Mariner 9 images of Mars
- Mariner 9 approaching Mars movie Archived 2012-01-25 at the Wayback Machine
- Mariner 9 images, including dust storm
- Mariner 9 view of Phobos (hosted by The Planetary Society)
- Mariner 9 image compared to MGS image, helps determine if Dunes moved in decades
- P.418 Correct DN values appear to be 512, not 64 i.e. 9bits per pixel