The joint Russian-European project "ExoMars" is preparing for its main mission - searching for traces of past and present life on the Red Planet. The European Space Agency will manufacture the flight module and the rover, while Russia will manufacture the landing module and landing platform. All this will be launched into space by the Russian Proton-M launch vehicle.

Starting as planned on July 25, 2020, the station will have to reach the target on March 19, 2021. One of the main conditions for a soft landing on the surface of Mars will be the landing module's protective shield made of a special composite produced by ONPP Tekhnologiya, part of Rostec.

The Martian Chronicles: Project History

ExoMars is a project of the European Space Agency (ESA) and Roscosmos to explore Mars, its surface, atmosphere and climate from orbit and on the surface of the planet.

Since the early 2000s, ExoMars has been developed as a joint project between ESA and NASA. It was assumed that the Americans will provide two Atlas rockets for launching two missions, and will also participate in the development of the rover. However, in 2013 NASA stopped its participation in the project due to budget cuts. The place of NASA was taken by Roskosmos. As part of the project, the Russian side will develop a landing module with a landing platform, and the European side will develop a flight module and a rover.

Graphics: JSC "NPO Lavochkina"

It is believed that the main scientific mission of the ExoMars project is to search for signs of life on Mars in the past and present. But not only this riddle of the Red Planet is to be solved by ExoMars. The goal of the project is also to study the aquatic / geochemical environment both on the surface and in the bowels of the planet. As you know, water on Mars is no longer a myth. For the first time, its presence was announced about twenty years ago. During all this time, the water on Mars was studied from the surface and mapped. And in July last year, the first permanent reservoir was named: the MARSIS radar discovered a lake on Mars at a depth of 1.5 km under the ice of the South Polar Cap.

Today, an equally important mystery has emerged - Martian methane. Scientists first reported methane on Mars in 2003. This gas was found in negligible concentration, and the total volume of emission corresponded to 42 thousand tons of gas. For comparison, this is about a third of an average LNG carrier.

In 2012, the American rover Curiosity conducted the first studies and found that there is no methane on Mars. But about a year later, Curiosity again recorded the presence of methane in Gale Crater. So the study of methane, as well as other gas impurities and their sources in the atmosphere of the Red Planet is also one of the key missions of ExoMars.

The first stage of the ExoMars program began in 2016 with the aim of solving the methane conundrum. Then the ExoMars-2016 station was launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome. It consisted of the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) scientific orbiter and the Schiaparelli demonstration lander. The Schiaparelli apparatus was supposed to work out the technology of entering the atmosphere, descent and landing on the planet's surface before launching the second stage of the mission, but failed to successfully make a soft landing and crashed.

TGO started its scientific program in April 2018, successfully transfers images of the Red Planet and is now waiting for its main mission - starting functioning as a relay station for the rover and an automatic scientific station within the second stage of ExoMars.

Second stage: rover and station on Mars

The start of the second stage of ExoMars was originally planned for 2018, but then the launch was postponed for two years. It is this stage that is considered the main one in the project and is designed to help find an answer to the question of whether there is life on Mars.

As part of the second mission, it is planned to deliver a Russian landing platform and a European rover to Mars on a flight module developed by ESA. The flight module provides a flight along the Earth-Mars route and the entry of the landing module into the planet's atmosphere at a speed of about 5800 m / s. The landing module carries out braking in the atmosphere and descent to the surface of Mars of the landing module as part of the landing platform and the rover.

Infographics: Roscosmos

The Russian amphibious assault module will be protected when it enters the Martian atmosphere by a special shield made of a "space" composite - a lightweight and durable material called fiberglass. This material can withstand strong vibration, extreme temperatures and is lightweight. The protective screen is produced at the Rostec enterprise - ONPP "Tekhnologiya". “The protective screen has a rather complex structure, it is a kind of multilayer cake, which alternates with layers of carbon fiber and honeycomb filler, and then it is still covered with heat protection,” says Anatoly Sviridov, director of NPK Kompozit, ONPP Tekhnologiya.

Photo: JSC "NPO Lavochkina"

The company says that work on the ExoMars-2020 project is going according to plan. Large-sized structures made of polymer composite materials for the landing module and landing platform have been developed. In total, the program provides for the creation of four sets - three for testing and a "flight" copy.

In addition, 62 thermal control panels and frames of solar batteries have already been manufactured, including 12 frames and six thermal control panels, which are necessary for the functioning of the landing platform on the surface of Mars after the rover departs.

Mars rover of the project "ExoMars-2020". Source: ESA

The six-wheeled European rover weighing about 350 kg is designed to operate on Mars for seven Earth months. He can walk up to 100 m per day and must travel several kilometers during this time. This rover will search for molecular biological signs in the subsurface layer of the Red Planet for the first time.

After the rover departs, the Russian landing platform weighing 828 kg will begin to operate as a long-lived autonomous scientific station. It is planned to work on Mars for about a year. A complex of scientific equipment will be installed on board to study the composition and properties of the planet's surface. In total, 13 scientific instruments will be installed, including two European ones - LARA (radio experiment for studying the internal structure of Mars) and HABIT (an experiment to search for potentially habitable zones, liquid water, studies of UV radiation and temperature).

Point and time of arrival: Mars, 19 March 2021

In the first months of 2019, the final assembly of the automatic interplanetary station "ExoMars-2020" will begin. The launch will take place from July 25 to August 13, 2020 from the Baikonur cosmodrome on a Proton-M rocket. Arrival to Mars will occur on March 19, 2021, said the head of the state corporation Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin in September last year.

Since 2014, proposals for the landing site have been discussed. Initially, there were four candidate regions: the Oksia Plain, the Mavrta Valley, the Aram Ridge and the Hypanis Plain. Finally, in November 2018, the Landing Site Selection Working Group (LSSWG) recommended the Oxia Plain for the ExoMars 2020 mission spacecraft.

Plain Oxia (Oxia Planum). Photo: NASA / JPL / University of Arizona

The Oxia Plain is located near the equator in the northern hemisphere of Mars, near the border of highlands and lowlands. According to the available data, there are not very many large impact craters here, but there are quite a lot of dry channels. Thus, traces of water action in the geological past should be visible.

The landing area is an ellipse 120x19 km inside a shallow crater. Here, rocks enriched with iron and magnesium come to the surface. Above them lies a layer of dark matter, possibly of volcanic origin. That is, the landscape is quite diverse, and the rover will be able to explore various formations near the landing site. In addition, all safety requirements for landing have been met. There are no significant elevations within the landing ellipse, and the area is fairly low and level.

Now the time has come for the revival of the "Cognitive Cosmodrome". By popular demand, today we will talk about the rovers that scientists have thrown into the Martian expanses. So, if the word "rover" arouses your interest, then you can safely press "under the cut"!

Prologue

Let's start with the definitions. Today we are looking at rovers - devices sent to another planet for the purpose of descent and further movement on the surface of the planet for detailed study. In addition to such devices, the so-called AMS, automatic interplanetary stations, also descended on the surface of Mars. Their difference from rovers is that they are deprived of the ability to move and collect information that is available only at the landing point.

Only three countries were able to send a spacecraft to the surface of Mars, and one of these countries no longer exists. The USSR sent "Mars-2", "Mars-3" and "Mars-6", Great Britain - "Beagle-2", and the remaining 8 vehicles were the property of the United States. By the way, although the British spacecraft made a successful landing, it never made contact with the Earth. In general, for all the short time that a person is mastering the Red Planet, out of 12 landing attempts, only 9 were able to avoid a crash on contact with the surface, and only 7 of them were able to transfer any information back to the command post.

But let's talk about rovers, because AMS, it seems to me, are not that interesting. In total, 6 rovers were launched to Mars, of which only 4 successfully worked at least for some time. Let's look at them in chronological order.

PrOP-M

Two identical Soviet vehicles, called the abounding consonant abbreviation PrOP-M (Surface Estimator - Mars), were part of the Mars 2 and Mars 3 missions in 1971. Both of these missions ended unsuccessfully: the first spacecraft failed to make a soft landing, while writing itself down in history as the first anthropogenic mechanism to reach the surface of Mars; the second, although he was able to sit down without crashing, transmitted a signal in the form of a gray background and then only for a short 14.5 seconds, after which contact with him was lost.

Although the Soviet rovers did not become the first working vehicles in their class, this does not mean at all that there was nothing interesting in them. Unlike their subsequent American "colleagues", they were equipped not with wheels already familiar to us, but with walking "skis", which were located on the sides. This design was not as effective as, for example, tracks or wheels, but was chosen due to insufficient knowledge of the planet's surface at the time of the development of the device.

The dimensions of the PrOP-Ms were only 25 x 22 x 4 cm, and their weight was 4.5 kg. According to the plan, they could move away from their stationary stations by the length of the cable with which they were tied to it, i.e. 15 meters.

Sojourner

The first operational rover was Sojourner, which was part of the American Mars Pathfinder mission. The name "Sojourner" ( literally: "traveler", "alien") appeared as a result of a competition hosted by NASA. The winner was a 12-year-old boy, who, in fact, invented the name of the conqueror of Mars, naming him in honor of a woman fighter against Negro slavery - Sojourner Trut.

The landing of the Mars Pathfinder mission was successful on July 4, 1997, and contact with the rover lasted until September 27 of the same year.

Landing station panorama. The Sojourner is visible on the right (clickable).

The device was a "radio-controlled machine" measuring 65 x 48 x 30 cm and weighing 10.6 kg (which was about 4 kg on Mars), almost the entire upper panel of which was occupied by a solar battery. Of the equipment on board there was:

• Three cameras, two of which were paired to form a stereo system, and looked forward, and one - back.
• Alpha Proton X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) for determining the chemical composition of the studied rocks.
• Antenna for communication with the landing station, capable of transmitting a signal over a distance of 500 meters.
• A solar battery that fed a battery with a capacity of 24 to 36 Ah (depending on temperature).

I think that many of our readers will be especially interested in reading about the on-board computers installed on the rovers. In Sojourner's case, it was an 8-bit Intel 80C85 gem running at 2 MHz, 512 KB RAM, and a 176 KB solid-state flash drive. Let me remind you that this filling was in 1997. The onboard software skillfully draws 3D terrain maps and selects the shortest and safest routes to a specified point.

If you are extremely surprised by the fact that such an advanced scientific instrument as the rover has such weak technical characteristics, then I hasten to explain. The space IT infrastructure is quite different from the terrestrial one and simply does not keep pace with the pace of its development. The fact is that in addition to the need for simple reliability of technology (any glitch, bug or failure can cost billions), the space environment is extremely aggressive. Even on Mars, where there is some kind of magnetic field that protects the surface from radiation, it is about 800 times weaker than Earth's. The radiation dose received on the planet's surface will be 0.2-0.3 Gy / year, which is approximately equal to the radiation dose while on the ISS. And during a flight to Mars, this dose can be 2-3 times higher. And since this dose is received by a technician, this increases the necessary margin of its strength in comparison with terrestrial counterparts many times over. Once I even heard the myth that you cannot take cameras on an airplane (to an altitude of about 10 km), because the matrix there can burn out due to cosmic radiation. Imagine what then can happen even a little higher.

We return to "Sojourner". In about 83 sol (Martian days), he made a path around his landing station about 100 meters long. This was a significant achievement, especially given the fact that it was originally planned that Sojourner would “live” no more than Sol 7. During its research, the rover studied in detail several stones, which were even given names: "Barnacle Bill", "Yogi", "Scooby-Doo", "Moe".

As a result of the Mars Pathfinder mission, scientists were able to find out a lot about the chemical composition of soil and dust, as well as confirm the theory that Mars was previously warmer and wetter. Contact with Sojourner was lost at 10:23 (UTC) on September 27, 1997, when the landing station ceased to transmit and receive signals. After some time of unsuccessful attempts to restore communication, the mission was officially declared completed. The exact place of the Sojourner's stop is not known at the moment, but this gap will be restored with the launch of ultra-precise cameras into Mars orbit in the future.

Spirit and Opportunity

In 2004, the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission sent two identical rovers to Mars, named Spirit and Opportunity. On January 4, 2004, Spirit made a soft landing in Gusev Crater, and a few days later, on January 25, Opportunity repeated the same thing, but on the Meridiana Plateau.

As in the case of the Pathfinder mission, a competition was held under the auspices of NASA to determine the names of the rovers. It was won by a 9-year-old American girl with Russian roots, Sophie Collies.

Both MERs were significantly larger, heavier, and technically and scientifically more advanced than their predecessor. With dimensions of 1.6 x 2.3 x 1.5 m, their weight was 185 kg (~ 70 kg on Mars). Like Sojourner, the rovers had 6 wheels (each 26 cm in diameter) and large solar panels. Elements such as a mast on which the cameras were located and other tools were added to the design, as well as a manipulator arm with an attached drill and another camera.

From the hardware on Spirit and Opportunity one could find the following:

• PanCam, a panoramic camera that takes color images with a resolution of 1024 x 1024. Used to study the texture, color and structure of the surface of Mars.
• NavCams, a relatively low resolution wide-angle lens camera used for navigation.
• A micro camera (MI) capable of taking close-up images of rocks and rocks in high resolution (1024 x 1024) for detailed study.
• HazCams, a system of two 120-degree black and white cameras used to detect and identify obstacles.
• Three spectrometers: Mini-TES, MIMOS II, APXS, which are needed to analyze the chemical composition of the studied soil.
• Magnets used to collect dust and thus determine its magnetic properties.
• Drilling tool capable of drilling holes in rocks with a diameter of 45 mm and a depth of 5 mm.

As for the rover computers, which we agreed to pay special attention to, the MER twins used devices based on the RAD6000 stone from IBM, operating at a frequency of 20 MHz, 128 MB of RAM and 256 MB of solid-state flash drive. This filling was a significant step forward compared to its predecessor, but even in 2004 it was not "top-of-the-shelf". The reasons for this are all the same.

Spirit

The Spirit rover, having landed on the surface of Mars on January 4, 2004 in Gusev Crater, worked instead of the planned 90 sols as much as 2210 sols, of which 1892 sol it could move. Having traveled a total of about 7.7 km, on May 1, 2009, he was stuck in the soft ground of the Red Planet, from which he could not get out, despite desperate attempts by NASA to solve this situation. Thereafter, the mission continued until March 22, 2010, when Spirit's last contact with Earth took place. All the time he was "idle" he continued to study the environment, although he could not move.

Sunset in Gusev Crater, Spirit (clickable).

Opportunity

Opportunity was landed on Mars on January 25, 2004 on the Meridian Plateau, while being significantly more fortunate than its slightly older twin brother. The planned service life was also Sol 90, but this does not prevent Opportunity from working to this day. It is the second rover in history along the path covered, having covered more than 36 km during its service life, yielding so far only to Lunokhod-2, while continuing to increase this indicator even right now, while you are reading this article. So in the near future it has every chance to catch up and overtake Lunokhod-2. Not so long ago, Opportunity celebrated an incredible date of 10 Earth years from the moment of landing.

results

It is difficult to overestimate the analysis of information from the rovers scientifically. As a result of the data obtained, scientists were able to once again confirm the theory that Mars was previously warmer and wetter. Moreover, studies of a stone called "Esperance-6", found by "Opportunity", proved that it was for a long time in streams of liquid, which was nothing more than fresh water suitable for the existence of living organisms in it.

Curiosity

On August 6, 2012, the Curiosity rover ( English curiosity). Although it was significantly larger than its predecessors - 899 kg (~ 340 kg on Mars) with parameters 3.1 x 2.7 x 2.1 m - and much better equipped in terms of equipment, its goals were approximately the same: to study the surface of Mars and look for evidence of water and maybe even life.

Curiosity is the most advanced rover at the time of this writing. It is so modern that it has own twitter, in which he talks about discoveries, posts photos of Mars and complains about his hard lot. There are Russian analog if some of the readers do not know English. I advise everyone who has not yet subscribed to it to do it quickly.

Probably, you already have a completely logical question, looking at Curiosity in comparison with its predecessors: what does it power from, because it does not have large solar panels? The answer is simple - it has its own radioisotope thermoelectric reactor on board, similar to those on the Viking-1 and Viking-2 vehicles. The use of the reactor makes it possible to obtain a constant current throughout the entire Martian year and regardless of weather conditions.

Let's go through the equipment installed on the rover, of which, by the way, there are a lot:

• MastCam, a camera mounted on a mast, which actually consists of two cameras. Both have a sensor with a resolution of 2 MP, capable of taking pictures of 1600 x 1200 in real color. The difference between the two cameras of the system is the focal length - 100 mm with a 5.1 degree angle of view and 34 mm with a 15 degree angle of view. Previously, lenses with zoom were developed for them, but the developers did not have time to complete the system for maintaining the lubricant in a liquid state, and they had to abandon the zooms. The closest focusing distance is 2.1 m, and images are recorded in RAW on 8 GB flash memory.
• Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), a camera located on a manipulator arm, the main purpose of which is to shoot the object under study close up. The matrix is ​​identical to that used in the MastCam, while it is able to detail objects from 14 microns (thinner than a human hair). There are white and UV backlights. The latter is necessary to induce the radiation of minerals, the presence of which indicates the presence of water.
• MSL Mars Descent Imager (MARDI), another camera located on the body of the rover. The matrix is ​​identical to the previous two. When the Curiosity landed on Mars, MARDI took 4,000 color images at 3 fps.
• NavCams, a system of 4 cameras located on a mast, serving to assist in navigation and positioning of the manipulator.
• HazCams, a system of 8 cameras with wide-angle lenses (viewing angle 120 degrees), located in front and behind the device, while pointing down. Used to detect obstacles and then avoid them.
• ChemCam, camera-spectrometer located on the mast. Paired with a pulsed laser, the system vaporizes a piece of the object under study for spectral analysis at a distance. This approach eliminates the need for a manipulator, saving time and energy.
• APXS, a spectrometer that irradiates samples with alpha particles.
• CheMin, mini-laboratory that analyzes the powder obtained during drilling and collected by the bucket CHIMRA.
• SAM, another tool for analyzing hard rocks.
• RAD, a radiation detector that collects background data on Mars. His readings will be very useful for subsequent human expeditions to Mars.
• DAN, a tool for finding hydrogen and water ice.
• REMS, mini-meteorological station that studies atmospheric conditions on Mars.

As agreed, we will talk about the installed computer separately. Curiosity has two identical computers (one main, one spare) with RAD750 processors with a frequency of 200 MHz, 256 KB EEPROM, 256 MB DRAM and as much as 2 GB of flash drive. While working on Mars, the first computer crashed, after which it was necessary to completely switch to a spare device. Now the operability of the first computer has been restored, but the command post is in no hurry to move back to it.

One of the most impressive photos taken by Curiosity is by far the selfie with Mars in the background (clickable).

The effect of the presence of the photographer is created due to the fact that 55 images were used in the above photo, glued together. At the same time, the manipulator arm, with the help of which this photo was taken, was neatly cut out. NASA even released a special video explaining how everything was done.

For a more complete effect, you can wear red and blue glasses and enjoy the stereo pair.

Curiosity continues to successfully explore Mars to this day. Not without technical problems, like the aforementioned failures of the main computer. More recently, problems with wheel wear began to appear, and just the other day on Twitter, Curiosity showed a rather large hole in them.

It was the 556th sol. The wheel has already broken. Titanium wheel. Titanium! Tears on my lenses pic.twitter.com/Z2gFQwxJ8e

Curiosity rover (@CuriosityRU)

Do you think the most modern car in the world is the Bugatti Veyron? Or Formula 1 cars? Nothing like this! Despite all its "coolness", these are still ordinary cars. Yes, thanks to such models, the auto industry is making constant small steps forward. But they do not allow making a huge leap for all of humanity. And a clumsy and rather strange vehicle called Curiosity did it! After all, Curiosity does not travel around planet Earth. This is the newest rover, which last week not only successfully "parted", but also began to transmit the first photographs to us. This means that one of the most difficult projects in the history of all astronautics has been crowned with success.

The creation of the new rover took a long time. The competition for the project of the Martian vehicle was announced back in April 2004. As a result, engineers of two industrial "monsters" Boeing and Lockheed Martin took up the creation of the rover. Initially, it was assumed that the rover will hit the road in 2009, but due to all sorts of problems, it was decided to postpone the start to 2011. By the way, it is interesting that the name Curiosity (translated as "Curiosity") was invented ... by a 12-year-old schoolgirl named Clara Ma, who won a specially organized competition. Other potential names (possibly used in the future) were: Wonder, Sunrise, Adventure, Journey, Pursuit, Vision, Amelia and Perception.

Among all the planets in the solar system, Mars (the fourth planet from the Sun) is the most similar to the Earth (the third planet from the Sun). There is an atmosphere on Mars, which, however, consists mainly of carbon dioxide. Plus, the atmosphere is very rarefied. But at the same time, the temperature on the planet is not as low as it might seem. On average, minus 50 degrees, but, say, at the equator at noon we are already talking about plus 20 degrees (but at the poles in winter the temperature drops to minus 153).

Of course, Curiosity bears little resemblance to the cars we are used to. At first sight. And yet this is a real vehicle that has wheels (there are six of them here), independent suspensions, an engine, a battery, and so on. Moreover, if all the previous rovers were more like toys, then Curiosity even in its dimensions resembles a passenger car. Its length is about three meters, and its weight is about 900 kg. This is five times heavier than the previous American rovers Spirit and Opportunity.

In the automotive world, the trend is that each next generation of a car is larger than the previous one. The same is true for rovers: the American firstborn, Sojourner, is the smallest, and Curiosity is the largest. Opportunity occupies an intermediate position.

And such dimensions forced NASA engineers to develop a fundamentally new way of landing on a distant planet. After all, if earlier a scheme was used in which a platform from which the rover moved out sat on a solid surface, then in the case of Curiosity it became clear that such a platform would be too large. Therefore, the so-called "sky crane" was invented, thanks to which Curiosity "swooped" directly onto its own wheels - a special rocket platform after firing a parachute hovered over Mars, lowered Curiosity on special cables (they were then cut off) and flew to the side. And the new landing pattern is very interesting. According to NASA experts, it allows objects larger than Curiosity to be sent to Mars. Much larger.

Curiosity landed on Mars on August 6 this year. The landing site is the 154 km long Gale crater, in the center of which is the 5 km high Eolis peak. It is believed that Gale Crater was once a sea. This means that a variety of minerals could be preserved on its surface. All ten major Curiosity instruments are expected to be operational by Sol 10. And by the 30th sol, a two-meter arm-manipulator will begin to work, which will collect soil samples and send them to the minilab for research. What is salt? This is the name of the Martian day, which lasts 24.66 Earth hours. By the way, a year on Mars lasts 687 Earth days.

If you have not yet understood what we are talking about now, then here is another hint for you - the main task of Curiosity is not so much studying minerals and photographing the Red Planet. Curiosity's goal is… - Attention! - preparation for mastering it by man! Yes, this is not a joke. So far, NASA is cautiously talking about their plans for the future, but no one doubts that the next global goal is to land a man on Mars. Moreover, not just a landing, but the creation of a whole base on the planet for work for a long time (after all, only a flight to Mars lasts about 9 months).

The Curiosity rover has already begun work. So far, he has not yet taken up the study of the ground and the search for water, but the first photographs of the Red Planet have already been received. Curiosity is equipped with several cameras, which not only allow you to take photos, but are also responsible for orienting the rover on the planet, looking for obstacles and helping to plan a route.

Another interesting feature of Curiosity is the "fuel" for the engines. Previously, solar panels were used for such vehicles. However, Curiosity is too large and heavy (by the way, 900 kg is its earth mass, on Mars it weighs 340 kg), and solar panels simply would not be enough for it. That is why the plutonium-238 decay energy is used to operate the engines and various research equipment on the new rover, which is enough to generate 2.5 kWh of thermal energy and 125 W of electrical energy. NASA says that 4.5 kilograms of plutonium will be enough for 14 years of operation (although the Americans are still cautious about the fact that Curiosity will work for about two years - they say, it will be seen further).

One of the cameras, called ChemCam, is designed to work with a special laser, which, using a beam, evaporates substances that are on the planet. ChemCam determines the chemical composition of these substances by the spectrum of radiation.

What will a car called Curiosity give us? Nothing yet. At the moment, this is nothing more than pure science. However - and you can be sure of it - it is projects like Curiosity that allow humanity to develop and come up with something new. Despite all its seeming modesty, Curiosity can be put on a par with such great achievements of mankind as the flight of Gagarin or the landing of a man on the moon.

Mars vehicle fleet

The first celestial object where a person managed to send a self-propelled vehicle was a natural satellite of the Earth. We are talking about "Lunokhod-1", which was created by Soviet scientists. The interplanetary station delivered the rover to the surface of the Moon on November 10, 1970, and, moreover, five (!) People controlled the eight-wheeled vehicle from Earth: the commander, driver, antenna operator, navigator and flight engineer. What was the lunar rover? Actually a car! Weight - 900 kg, chassis length - 2215 mm, track width - 1600 mm, wheel diameter - more than half a meter, and the maximum speed of movement on the lunar surface was 4 km / h.

"Lunokhod-1" rode on the Earth satellite until September 30, 1971, and its "replacement", "Lunokhod-2", explored the moon from January 15 to June 4, 1973.

Interestingly, a Soviet rover was also the first to land on the surface of Mars! The vehicle with the complex name "Cross-Country Evaluation Device - Mars" (abbreviated as PrOP-M) reached the Red Planet on November 27, 1971, but failed its mission: the descent vehicle crashed during landing ... Moreover, an attempt was made to re-land on the fourth planet from the Sun soon, on December 2, but the scientists were let down ... by the weather. The device managed to work only for 20 seconds, after which the ingenious technique was destroyed by a dust storm.

The Soviet Mars rovers (there were two of them) did not fulfill their mission, after which the Mars exploration program was suspended.

The Soviet rover looked like a compact box (dimensions - 25 cm x 22 cm x 4 cm), which was oriented thanks to sensors (the device independently determined which side the obstacle was on) and walked (!) Along the surface with a pair of skis. But the rover was moving slowly, at a speed of 1 m / h, and after each passed meter it stopped to receive a command from the Control Center. Note that the commands were sent not to the device itself, but to the descent vehicle, with which the "researcher" was connected by a 15-meter cable.

Baby Sojourner (mass during the operation on Mars - 10.6 kg, length - 65 cm) explores his first - on the surface of the Red Planet - stone.

After unsuccessful attempts by the USSR to conquer Mars, earthlings took a timeout, and the next rover landed on the ground of a celestial body only on July 4, 1997. Russia at that moment was not up to large-scale space programs, so the Americans took over the baton: the state-owned Sojourner (in honor of Trut Sojourner, who fought for the rights of blacks) landed on July 4, 1997, but, for technical reasons, the rover separated from the lander only on July 5, and went to the study of the Red Planet on July 6, having a spectrometer to study the chemical composition of rocks.

A circular panorama of the Chryse Plain, captured by the camera of the lander that delivered the Sojourner rover to the Red Planet.

The Americans chose to abandon the walking scheme, which the Soviet specialists had worked out, and equipped the Sojoyner with wheels, or rather, six 13-centimeter rollers, each of which rotated independently. Inside the car were hidden 11 3.2 W DC motors (which were powered by a solar battery): 6 motors were in motion, 4 more set the direction of movement, and the latter lowered and raised the spectrometer. The engineers endowed the Mars explorer with a fair amount of maneuverability - he tilted 45 ° without overturning and confidently overcame obstacles up to 20 cm high.

Sojourner is heading for a rock formation called Yogi, the second object explored by an American machine.

Sojourner finished his "business trip" on September 17, 1997 - it was then that NASA specialists managed to contact their brainchild for the last time. During this time, the rover examined several stones with a spectrometer and took 550 photographs. The results of the studies carried out by the "Mars Walker" finally convinced scientists that it was "humid and warm" on this planet. American taxpayers were also pleased: the cost of the program, which gave good results, turned out to be relatively low - $ 287 million.

The Opportunity rover is folded into a protective descent vehicle (on the right) and a Delta-2 rocket is sent to the fourth planet from the Sun.

The next two vehicles, Spirit (second name - MER-A, Mars Exploration Rover - A) and Opportunity (or MER-B), were twins. This generation of rovers also remained six-wheeled, but received a much larger set of equipment: a microscope and a drill were added to the spectrometer and cameras. It is interesting that the slippage, which motorists are struggling with, has become a blessing for the planetary rovers - while “skidding” with one of the wheels, “Spirit” dug up soil for research. Otherwise, in terms of the device, there is nothing new - for each wheel - one electric motor, separate motors for turning the machine and the drive of the "servo-arm" holding the instruments.

Above - the landing platform of the Spirit rover, and below - a panorama of the 200-meter Bonneville crater, made by the camera of a self-propelled vehicle.

First, on January 4, 2004, Spirit landed on Mars, and on January 25, 2004, Opportunity reached its destination, which landed on the other side of the planet. As part of this mission, it was planned to study sedimentary rocks, but those were not found. But MER-A drilled a hole for the first time on the Red Planet, and MER-B dug the first trench on this celestial body and "saw" thin, Earth-like clouds. At the end of 2009, Spirit tried to overcome the dune, but got stuck so that he could not get out of the sand trap. But Opportunity continues to work!

The lander was left empty (right), while Opportunity went to explore the planet, including Endurance Crater's Fiery Cliff (bottom left).

Opportunity managed to roll almost 35 thousand meters along the “unknown paths”, studying the soil and rock samples, as well as taking panoramic photographs, so now there are a couple of active “explorers” on the Martian surface - Opportunity and Curiosity. Thus, during the exploration of Mars, four rovers worked on this planet, including the American rover. In the foreseeable future, several new all-terrain vehicles will also visit the fourth planet from the Sun: the Russian Mars-Astera and European ExoMars are scheduled to land in 2018, and in 2022 they want to deliver samples of alien soil to Earth.

MarsExplorationRover is the famous NASA program aimed at comprehensive exploration of the planet Mars. Within the framework of this program, two rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, were delivered to the surface of the "red planet" almost simultaneously. In 2012, due to the failure of the Spirit apparatus and the setting of new scientific tasks, NASA delivers a new generation of Mars rover Curiosity to the planet's surface, which is significantly larger and heavier than its predecessors.

First Steps on Planet Mars: Spirit and Opportunity

The Spirit rover landed on the surface of Mars on January 3, 2004. Opportunity joined him on January 25 of the same year. As for the third world famous rover Curiosity, it reached the surface of Mars on August 6, 2012, and immediately began work.

I must say that Spirit has made a number of interesting discoveries. In particular, based on the results of samples of the Martian soil made by this device, scientists were able to put forward a hypothesis that in the past, Mars had excellent conditions for the life of microorganisms. Despite the fact that the mission of this rover was supposed to last 90 days, it has been used for over six years. Communication with Spirit was cut off on July 23, 2010.

Opportunity, which arrived three weeks later than Spirit, is still working. It should be noted that it was Opportunity who was able to find traces of a whole dry ocean on Mars. In addition, he owns very accurate measurements of various parameters of the Martian atmosphere.

Mars Exploration Curiosity

The Curiosity rover is not just a wonderful next-generation Martian rover, but also a fairly large autonomous chemical laboratory. The main task of using this apparatus is to carry out a number of in-depth studies of the soil and atmosphere. Now the rover is studying the geological history of the "red planet" in Gale Crater, where it is possible to work with deep soils.

The rover, which weighs 900 kg on Earth, 3 meters long and 2.7 meters wide, has 3 pairs of wheels with a diameter of 50 cm, is able to move in any direction and transmit data on soil samples, images from the planet's surface and other valuable information to the Earth. The expected time of the mission is 1 Martian year, which is equal to 687 Earth days.

The first target after landing, which NASA Curiosity successfully completed on August 6 this year in Gale Crater, 150 km in diameter, was a trip to the foot of Mount Sharpe. The mountain itself is 5.5 km high. The task is to study the version of the impact of water currents that once exposed the slopes of Mount Sharpe, but at the moment the rover at the landing site did not find so much water as expected, only 1.5%. But its presence was assumed to be from 5.6 to 6.5%.

The main results of Curiosity's work are that it determined the two-layer nature of the Martian soil. The first, the so-called dry layer, contains practically no water. At the same time, at a depth of over 40 cm, the water content is about 4%.

And now, high-quality images from Mars were obtained using superimposed filters, which were transmitted by the Curiosity rover. One of the pictures shows the foot of Mount Sharpe to which Curiosity follows.

Nevertheless, the first data of this chronicle from Mars have been received. The ambient temperature is +3 degrees Celsius and some interesting pictures, one of them clearly shows Mount Sharpe towards which the rover is moving. True, he will reach it only by the new year on earth, because his speed is very low, only 0.14 km / h.

(Video of the surface of the planet Mars transmitted by the Curiosity rover)

Before heading to the mountain, NASA's Curiosity rover checked all the equipment, took many pictures, wiggled a drill and tested a laser cannon, the purpose of which is not to protect against Martians, but to collect soil and air samples from a distance.

At the moment, of the three rovers launched since 2003, two are working on Mars. During this time, many scientific discoveries of various scales have been made.

Leading world experts believe that the basis for the success of American rovers is the ability of their creators to learn from their own mistakes. Accordingly, each new device becomes more perfect than its predecessors.

An interesting fact. Nasa staff envisioned the option of the first acquaintance with the "Martians". So after landing, the first thing the rover addressed to the desert planet was the voice of NASA Director Charles Bolden and sent the song Will.I.Am to earth.