Mars 96
Mars 96 was a failed Mars mission launched in 1996 to investigate Mars by the Russian Space Forces and not directly related to the Soviet Mars probe program of the same name. After failure of the second fourth-stage burn, the probe assembly re-entered the Earth's atmosphere, breaking up over a long portion of the Pacific Ocean, Chile, and Bolivia. The Mars 96 spacecraft was based on the Phobos probes launched to Mars in 1988. They were of a new design at the time and both ultimately failed. For the Mars 96 mission the designers believed they had corrected the flaws of the Phobos probes, but the value of their improvements was never demonstrated due to the destruction of the probe during the launch phase.
History
Mars 96, the only Soviet/Russian lunar or planetary probe in the 1990s, was an ambitious mission to investigate the evolution of the Martian atmosphere, its surface, and its interior. Originally planned as two spacecraft, Mars 94 and Mars 96, the missions were delayed and became Mars 96 and Mars 98. Subsequently Mars 98 was cancelled leaving Mars 96 as the first Russian deep space mission beyond Earth orbit since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The entire spacecraft comprised an orbiter, two small autonomous stations, and two independent penetrators.It was, however, a very ambitious mission and the heaviest interplanetary probe launched up to that time. The mission included a large complement of instruments provided by France, Germany, other European countries and the United States. Similar instruments have since been flown on Mars Express, launched in 2003. Its project scientist was Alexander Zakharov.
Scientific goals
Mars 96 was intended to improve our understanding of Mars. The scientific goal of the mission was to study the evolutionary history of the planet's surface, atmosphere, and inner structure. Other studies during cruise, such as astrophysical studies were to be made. They can be divided into several categories:Martian surface
Studies of the Martian surface were to include a global topographical survey, mineralogical mapping, soil composition, and studies of the cryolithozone and its deep structure.Atmosphere
Studies of the atmosphere were to include the climate, abundance of certain elements, ions, and chemicals such as water, carbon dioxide, ozone, and others, general global monitoring, pressure variations over time, and characterization of aerosols.Inner structure
Studies of planet structure were to find the thickness of the crust, study the Martian magnetic field, study of thermal flux, search for the possibility of active volcanoes, and study seismic activity.Plasma studies
Plasma studies were to study the strength and orientation of the magnetic field, study of ions and energy composition of plasma during interplanetary cruise and near Mars, and the study of the magnetosphere and its boundaries.Astrophysical studies
Astrophysical studies were to take place during interplanetary cruise. They included studies of cosmic gamma-bursts and the study of oscillations of the Sun and other stars.Design
Orbiter
The Mars 96 orbiter was a 3-axis Sun/star stabilized spacecraft which was based on the design of the Phobos orbiters. It had a deployable high and medium gain antennae. Two large solar panels were attached to either side of the spacecraft. It also had a jettisonable propulsion unit to be separated sometime after Mars orbit insertion. Two Surface Stations were attached on top of the spacecraft. Two Penetrators were attached to the propulsion unit. It also had a MORION system which was the central interface, microprocessor, and memory system. The orbiter had a total mass, with fuel, of 6180 kg. It had a dry mass of 3159 kg.Surface station
Each Surface Station was contained in an aeroshell about 1 meter high and about 1 meter in diameter. Each station had a Station Data Processing Unit for controlling station operations, telecommunications unit with a transmitter and a receiver for data transfer, and a power supply consisting of two radio-isotope thermoelectric generators, a battery, and electronics for controlling battery charge. Each Surface Station also carried a compact disc which contained science fiction stories, sound, and art that have inspired Mars exploration. It was intended as a gift for future human explorers. The expected lifetime of each Surface Station was one year.Penetrator
Each penetrator consisted of two major structures: the forebody and the afterbody. When the penetrator struck the surface the forebody was designed to separate and delve 5 to 6 meters into the surface while the afterbody remained on the surface connected to the forebody by wires. The forebody contained the housekeeping equipment and part of the analysing package while the afterbody contained the rest of the analysing package and the radio equipment. Each penetrator was powered by a Radioisotope thermoelectric generator and a battery. The expected lifetime of each penetrator was one year.Instruments
Orbiter
;ARGUS: The ARGUS platform consisted of two television cameras and a mapping spectrometer. The ARGUS had its own multiprocessor control system, a navigation television camera, a data acquisition system with a 1.5 Gigabit memory, a thermal control system, and an in-flight calibration system. It was designed to point the instruments attached to it with high accuracy on all three axes.;PAIS: The PAIS platform was designed to mount and point the SPICAM, EVRIS, and PHOTON instruments.
;HRSC: The High Resolution Stereoscopic television-Camera was designed to make detailed topographical studies and make atmospheric studies of cloud structures, limb brightness, and terminator features. It was one of the cameras mounted to the ARGUS platform. The design was reused in the Mars Express HRSC camera.
;WAOSS: The Wide-Angle Steroscopic television-Camera was designed to globally monitor Mars over time to make studies of cloud movement, surface changes due to dust storms, and other long-term observations of the surface and atmosphere. It was mounted to the ARGUS platform.
;OMEGA: The Visible and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer was designed to map Mars surface composition of igneous rocks, sedimentary rocks, soils, frosts, and ices. It was also supposed to map major gaseous and solid atmospheric components. It was mounted to the ARGUS platform.
;PFS: The Planetary Fourier Spectrometer was designed to make specialized studies of the surface and atmosphere. Atmospheric studies included monitoring of 3D temperature and pressure fields, global mapping of winds, variations of water and carbon monoxide in space and time, and the optical depth, phase function, size distribution, and chemical composition of aerosols. Surface studies included temperature and thermophysical properties of soils, mineralogical composition of the surface, surface condensates, and altimetry.
;TERMOSCAN: The Mapping Radiometer was designed to find the thermal inertia of the soil, monitor diurnal and seasonal dynamics of the temperature regime, search for anomalous heat sources, and thermal studies of the atmosphere.
;SVET: The High-Resolution Mapping Spectrometer was designed for spectrophotometry of Mars in absorption bands of some rocks that might exist in order to determine their composition, study the nature of aerosols, and convert TERMOSCAN data into a digital form compatible with the MORION system.
;SPICAM: The main objectives of the Multichannel Optical Spectrometer were to find the vertical profiles of ozone, water vapor, carbon monoxide, aerosols, and temperature, in the middle and lower atmosphere, diagnostic of the ionosphere, global distribution of water vapor, and building of the density model of the atmosphere. It was mounted to the PAIS platform.
;UVS-M: The Ultraviolet Spectrophotometer was to find the distribution of hydrogen, helium, and oxygen in the upper atmosphere, find the deuterium abundance in the atmosphere, make a high-altitude profile of the atmosphere, and find the neutral component of the interplanetary medium.
;LWR: The Long-Wave Radar was used by the GRUNT and PLASMA experiments. The GRUNT's objectives were to study the underlying surface of the Martian cryolithospheres, the determination of the depth of occurrence of ice-bearing rocks and their geographic distribution, and the estimation of dielectric parameters of soil. The PLASMA's objectives were to study the global distribution of height profiles of electron number-density in the upper ionosphere to study the dynamics of the solar wind interaction with the Atmosphere of Mars.
;PHOTON : The Gamma-Spectrometer was to map the elemental composition of rocks with high spatial resolution and high accuracy and to determine the abundance of natural radioactive elements and basic rock forming elements. It was mounted to the PAIS platform.
;NEUTRON-S: The Neutron Spectrometer was designed to investigate the water content in the surface layers of Martian soil.
;MAK: The Quadruple Mass Spectrometer was designed to determine the composition of the upper atmosphere and ionosphere, measure height profiles of the atmosphere ion and neutral composition, measure and update isotope ratios, and measure seasonal and diurnal variations of the atmosphere and ionosphere.
;ASPERA: The Energy-Mass Ion Spectrograph and Neutral-Particle Imager was designed to measure the interaction between the plasma and neutrals near Mars.
;FONEMA: The Fast Omnidirectional Non-Scanning Ion Energy-Mass Analyzer was designed to investigate the fine structure, dynamics, and origin of near martian plasma with measurements of 3D distribution functions of hot ions species with high time resolution.
;DYMIO: The Omnidirectional Ionospheric Mass Spectrometer was designed to investigate the dynamics of the ionosphere and its interaction with solar wind.
;MARIPROB: The Ionospheric Plasma Spectrometers were designed to measure the martian ionosphere and the cold plasma convection in the magnetosphere.
;MAREMF: The Electrostatic Analyzer and Magnetometer was to make measurements of the magnetic field vector and 3D distribution of electrons and ions in the plasma environment of Mars and in the solar wind.
;ELISMA: The Wave Complex was designed to measure solar wind interaction with the martian plasma environment, identification of instabilities in the ionosphere and magnetosphere, study waves of atmospheric origin generated by sand storms and lightning, global mapping of plasma convections, find the distribution of thermal plasma temperature and density to an altitude of 300 km, and monitor the dynamic relationship between the upper atmosphere and the lower ionosphere.
;SLED: The Low-Energy Charged Particle Spectrometer was designed to make detailed studies of energetic particle radiation in the martian environment and monitor low-energy cosmic rays during interplanetary cruise.
;PGS: The Precision Gamma Spectrometer was designed to measure gamma radiation from the surface of Mars, powerful solar flares, and gamma-bursts.
;LILAS-2: The Research of the Cosmic and Solar Gamma-Ray Bursts was to find localisation of the gamma-ray burst source with high precision, analyze the low energy absorption features in the spectra, and the study of the thermal radiation at the damping stage of the gamma-ray burst.
;EVRIS: The EVRIS Investigations of Oscillations in Stars instrument was designed to investigate the pulsation, rotation, and internal structure of stars and measure the photometric microvariabilities induced by those oscillations. It was mounted to the PAIS platform.
;SOYA: The Solar Oscillation Photometer was designed to study the Sun's internal structure.
;RADIUS-M: The Radiation/Dosimetery Control Complex was designed to study radiation during interplanetary cruise and near Mars, forecast the spacecraft's radiation dose, control dosimetery on board the spacecraft, study the propagation of charged particles in interplanetary space, and estimate the meteorite hazard to a spacecraft.