{"id":1559,"date":"2013-08-10T09:31:53","date_gmt":"2013-08-10T13:31:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.graymanwrites.com\/blog\/?p=1559"},"modified":"2013-08-10T09:31:53","modified_gmt":"2013-08-10T13:31:53","slug":"mars-7s-ill-fated-voyage-plus-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/mars-7s-ill-fated-voyage-plus-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Mars 7’s Ill-Fated Voyage, Plus One"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was a strange day … so odd that I missed posting a space history anniversary. It crossed my mind, briefly, once. I’m deeply disappointed in myself, of course.<\/p>\n

It just so happens that forty years ago yesterday<\/em> — August 9, 1973 — the USSR launched Mars 7<\/a> on a Proton K rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\n(Mars 7, essentially the same as Mars 6. Image from the National Space Science Data Center.)<\/em><\/p>\n

Launched four days after its sister ship, Mars 6<\/a>, and about two weeks after a companion pair of spacecraft, Mars 4 and Mars 5<\/a>, Mars 7<\/p>\n

reached Mars on 9 March 1974. Due to a problem in the operation of one of the onboard systems (attitude control or retro-rockets) the landing probe separated prematurely (4 hours before encounter) and missed the planet by 1300 km. The early separation was probably due to a computer chip error which resulted in degradation of the systems during the trip to Mars…. The lander and bus continued on into heliocentric orbits.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While we’re on the subject of ill-fated spacecraft, and to return to the usual space history routine, 45 years ago today<\/em> — August 10, 1968 — Applications Technology Satellite 4 (ATS 4)<\/a> launched from Cape Canaveral atop an Atlas Centaur. The rocket’s second stage failed, however, and stranded the spacecraft in a parking orbit instead of boosting it to the planned geosynchronous orbit. Put bluntly, even though some experiments were performed, “The primary objective of inserting a gravity-gradient-stabilized spacecraft into a geosynchronous orbit was not accomplished.”<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>by <\/span>\"feather\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was a strange day … so odd that I missed posting a space history anniversary. It crossed my mind, briefly, once. I’m deeply disappointed in myself, of course. It just so happens that forty years ago yesterday — August 9, 1973 — the USSR launched Mars 7 on a \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[26,85,11],"class_list":["post-1559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-space","tag-launch","tag-mars","tag-space-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1559"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1560,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1559\/revisions\/1560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}