Craine wrote:geckzilla wrote:Yes, gosh darn it, as long as 'Murica is the one sending out the probes, we're going to use miles.
And crash probes in the Martian desert?
WIKI wrote:Starting in 1960 the Soviets launched a series of probes to Mars inluding the intended first flybys and hard (impact) landing (Mars 1962B).[9] The first successful fly-by of Mars was on July 14–15, 1965, by NASA's Mariner 4.[10] On November 14, 1971 Mariner 9 became the first space probe to orbit another planet when it entered into orbit around Mars.[11] The amount of data returned by probes increased dramatically as technology improved.[9]
The first to contact the surface were two Soviet probes: Mars 2 lander on November 27 and Mars 3 lander on December 2, 1971—Mars 2 failed during descent and Mars 3 about twenty seconds after the first Martian soft landing.[12] Mars 6 failed during descent but did return some corrupted atmospheric data in 1974. [13] The 1975 NASA launches of the Viking program consisted of two orbiters, each with a lander that successfully soft landed in 1976. Viking 1 remained operational for six years, Viking 2 for three. The Viking landers relayed the first color panoramas of Mars[14] and the Viking orbiters mapped the surface so well that the images remain in use.
The Soviet probes Phobos 1 and 2 were sent to Mars in 1988 to study Mars and its two moons, with a focus on Phobos. Phobos 1 lost contact on the way to Mars. Phobos 2, while successfully photographing Mars and Phobos, failed before it was set to release two landers to the surface of Phobos.[15]
Roughly two-thirds of all spacecraft destined for Mars have failed without completing their missions, and it has a reputation as difficult space exploration target.[16] Missions that ended prematurely after Phobos 1 & 2 (1988) include Mars Observer (Launched in 1992), Mars 96 (1996), Mars Climate Orbiter (1999), Mars Polar Lander with Deep Space 2 (1999), Nozomi (2003), Beagle 2 (2003), and Fobos-Grunt with Yinghuo-1
Mars observer............NASA...Lost contact prior to orbital insertion
Mars 96.....................Russia...Launch failure
Mars Climate orbited...NASA...Lost contact at orbital insertion due to computer glitch metric vs imperial measurements
Mars Polar Lander.......NASA...Lost from early engine cutout probably metric vs imperial measurements
Nozomi......................JAXA...Electrical Failure
Beagle 2....................ESA...Failed to deploy solar panels
Photos Grunt..............Russia...Launch failure
50 Miles on Pluto
