4MV


The 4MV planetary probe is a designation for a common design used for Soviet unmanned probes to Mars and Venus.
It was an incremental improvement of earlier 3MV probes and was used for Mars missions 2 to 7 and Venera missions 9 to 16. Different versions of the bus exist, for example 4V-1, 4V-M and 4V-2. The same base design was also used for earth-orbiting space observatories.

Design

The spacecraft bus has a height of and a solar panel span of. The central section of the bus has a diameter of about and contained propellant. The main engine.[Image:Astron.gif|thumb|right|181x181px|Astron]

Variants