Roscosmos and the Russian space program

Chapter 1 · 1960 – 1964 The first attempts

The Soviet Union was the first to try to send spacecraft to Mars, as early as 1960. For ten years almost everything failed, but each failure moved the technology forward.

October 1960

On October 10, 1960, a Soviet rocket lifted off with a 480-kilogram probe, designed by the OKB-1 design bureau, meant to fly past Mars in May 1961. It was humanity’s first attempt to send a spacecraft toward Mars. A week before launch a camera and an instrument meant to detect organic life had been removed for lack of mass. During ascent, violent vibrations made a gyroscope malfunction; the rocket veered off course and the probe burned up in the atmosphere over eastern Siberia. Four days later, on October 14, the second probe met the same fate: frozen kerosene in a pipeline kept a valve from opening.

Mars 1

In the autumn of 1962 three new probes left. The first was destroyed when an upper-stage turbopump exploded. The second, launched on November 1, 1962, became Mars 1, the first spacecraft sent by any nation to fly past Mars. But right after engine cutoff, controllers found that the pressure in a nitrogen bottle of the attitude-control system had dropped to zero because a valve had not fully closed. They kept contact until March 21, 1963, at 106 million kilometers from Earth. On June 19, 1963, Mars 1 silently flew past Mars at 197,000 kilometers. Before falling silent it had measured cosmic rays, magnetic fields and solar particles in interplanetary space. The third 1962 probe, the only one with a lander, stayed stranded in Earth orbit.

Zond 2

On November 30, 1964, Zond 2 left for Mars. Its solar panels only partly unfurled: a tug cord meant to free them had broken. Controllers managed to open them only on December 15, too late for the first trajectory correction. On December 18, before losing contact, they fired six small plasma electric engines, a technology demonstration for future deep-space missions. Zond 2 was to have flown past Mars on August 6, 1965.

Between 1960 and 1969 the Soviet Union tried to send eight spacecraft to Mars. Only two, Mars 1 and Zond 2, reached interplanetary space, and contact was lost with both long before they arrived.

Sources: A. Siddiqi, Deep Space Chronicle: A Chronology of Deep Space and Planetary Probes 1958–2000, NASA SP-2002-4524 (entries for the probes of October 10 and 14, 1960, the three 1962 probes including Mars 1, and Zond 2: masses, causes of failure, 106 million and 197,000 kilometers, planned flyby dates, plasma engines); NASA History, “25 Years of Continuous Robotic Mars Exploration – From Pathfinder to Perseverance” (eight Soviet attempts between 1960 and 1969, only Mars 1 and Zond 2 in interplanetary space).

Chapter 2 · 1969 – 1974 The first landing on Mars

On December 2, 1971, a Soviet lander set down intact on Mars, a world first. It transmitted for twenty seconds, then fell silent, in the middle of a dust storm.

A new generation

For the 1969 window, the Lavochkin design bureau prepared 3.8-ton probes launched by the powerful Proton rocket. On March 27, 1969, the Proton’s third stage caught fire and shut down; on April 2, one of the six first-stage engines exploded at liftoff, and the rocket crashed three kilometers from the pad.

In 1971 the Soviets prepared three probes. The first, a simple orbiter meant to beat the American Mariners, was stranded in Earth orbit on May 10, 1971, under the name Kosmos 419: an operator had entered in reverse order the eight-digit code that was to fire the upper stage.

Mars 2 and Mars 3

Mars 2 and Mars 3 lifted off on May 19 and 28, 1971. Each combined an orbiter and an egg-shaped lander with petals that were to open on the ground, and a small mobile device, PROP-M. On November 27, 1971, the Mars 2 lander separated; because of software that corrected a trajectory error that did not exist, it entered the atmosphere at far too steep an angle, its parachute did not open and it crashed. It was the first human-made object to make contact with Mars.

On December 2, 1971, at 13:47 Universal Time, the Mars 3 lander set down intact at 45 degrees south latitude: the first successful landing on Mars. Three and a half minutes later it began transmitting an image of the surface. After twenty seconds, transmission stopped for good. A violent dust storm was raging across the whole planet; controllers surmised that an electrical discharge had disabled the instruments. The image received showed only a gray background without detail. The two orbiters worked until July 1972, but their photographs, taken during the storm and at the wrong exposure setting, showed little.

Four probes in 1973

In 1973 four probes left for Mars. Less than four months before launch, tests revealed a defect in the transistors used aboard, whose failure rate rose after a year and a half to two years, just when the probes would arrive. Despite odds of success of roughly one in two, the government went ahead. Mars 4 could not enter orbit and flew past the planet on February 10, 1974, taking a few photographs. Mars 5 entered orbit, but a slow leak in the instrument compartment left it about three weeks: between February 17 and 26, 1974, it took 180 frames, 43 of them usable, showing erosion caused by free-flowing water. The Mars 6 lander sent data during its descent under parachute on March 12, 1974, then fell silent just before touching down. The Mars 7 lander missed the planet by 1,300 kilometers.

In the 1970s, NASA sums up, six of the seven Soviet missions to Mars achieved at least partial success.

Sources: A. Siddiqi, Deep Space Chronicle, NASA SP-2002-4524 (the M-69s of March 27 and April 2, 1969, Kosmos 419 and the reversed code, Mars 2 and the first object to touch Mars, Mars 3 and the December 2, 1971 landing at 13:47, the image transmitted at 13:50 for twenty seconds, the storm, the orbiters until July 1972, the exposure, the four 1973 probes, the transistors, Mars 4, Mars 5 and its 180 frames of which 43 usable, Mars 6 and Mars 7); NASA History, “25 Years of Continuous Robotic Mars Exploration” (six of seven missions partially successful in the 1970s).

Chapter 3 · 1988 – 2012 Phobos, Mars 96 and Phobos-Grunt

After 1974, fourteen years passed before the next Mars mission. When Moscow returned to Mars, it was with ever more ambitious missions, which failed one after another.

Fobos 1 and 2

In July 1988 the Soviet Union launched two probes of more than six tons, Fobos 1 and Fobos 2, toward Mars and its larger moon Phobos. Each carried twenty-four experiments provided by thirteen countries and the European Space Agency; they were to enter orbit, fly close to Phobos, analyze its surface by laser and set down a lander. On August 29, 1988, because of a programming error, Fobos 1 was ordered to turn off its attitude-control system: it lost the Sun, then contact, on September 2.

Fobos 2 entered orbit around Mars on January 29, 1989. It photographed Phobos from 860, 320 and then 191 kilometers, and returned 37 detailed images covering 80% of the small moon. Release of the lander was planned for April 4 and 5. On March 27, 1989, the probe no longer answered: the onboard computer had failed. The mission was declared lost on April 15.

Mars 96

Mars 96, the only Soviet or Russian planetary probe launched between 1988 and 2000, was a very ambitious mission: an orbiter, two small surface stations and two penetrators that were to drive six to eight meters into the ground. It lifted off on November 16, 1996. The upper stage shut down prematurely after twenty seconds; the probe stayed in low orbit and fell back into Earth’s atmosphere. Debris, with its plutonium power source, was reported at the time to have fallen in Chile or Bolivia.

Phobos-Grunt

On November 8, 2011, Russia launched Phobos-Grunt, a mission meant to bring samples of Phobos back to Earth, carrying a small Chinese orbiter, Yinghuo-1. Once in its parking orbit, the spacecraft failed to fire its engine to leave for Mars. It made an uncontrolled reentry over the Pacific Ocean on January 15, 2012.

Sources: A. Siddiqi, Deep Space Chronicle, NASA SP-2002-4524 (Fobos 1 and 2: 6,220 kg, twenty-four experiments, thirteen countries and ESA, the August 29, 1988 error, orbit on January 29, 1989, distances of 860, 320 and 191 km, March 27, declared lost on April 15, 1989, computer failure; Mars 96: only probe from 1988 to 2000, orbiter, stations, penetrators of six to eight meters, launch on November 16, 1996, shutdown after twenty seconds, debris and plutonium); NASA History, “25 Years of Continuous Robotic Mars Exploration” (loss of Fobos 1 on September 2, 37 images and 80% of Phobos, Phobos-Grunt and Yinghuo-1, launch on November 8, 2011, reentry on January 15, 2012).

Chapter 4 · 1992 – 2022 Roscosmos and ExoMars

The Soviet Union disappeared in 1991; its space program survived it. A Russian agency, then a state corporation, inherited it. Its last great Mars venture was with Europe, until the break of 2022.

From an agency to a corporation

A Russian space agency was created in 1992, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. On July 13, 2015, a federal law created the State Corporation for Space Activities Roscosmos. A decree of December 2015 abolished the Federal Space Agency, whose functions passed to the new corporation from January 1, 2016; it also absorbed the United Rocket and Space Corporation.

ExoMars

With the European Space Agency, Roscosmos became a partner in the ExoMars program. On March 14, 2016, a Russian Proton-M rocket carried the Trace Gas Orbiter and the Schiaparelli demonstrator; the orbiter entered orbit around Mars on October 19, 2016, and is still working there. The second mission, which was to land the European Rosalind Franklin rover with a Russian descent module, was due to launch in September 2022.

On March 17, 2022, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, ESA’s Council suspended cooperation with Roscosmos on that mission; in July 2022 it cancelled it. Europe would build its own lander, reusing some hardware built for the Russian descent module.

Sources: Russian Federal Law No. 215-FZ of July 13, 2015 and presidential decree of December 2015, as reported by TASS and SpaceDaily (creation of the corporation, abolition of the Federal Space Agency on January 1, 2016, absorption of the United Rocket and Space Corporation); NASA History, “25 Years of Continuous Robotic Mars Exploration” (ExoMars 2016, joint ESA-Roscosmos mission, orbit on October 19, 2016); ESA, “ExoMars Factsheet” (launch on March 14, 2016 on Proton-M); ESA, “ExoMars suspended,” March 17, 2022; ESA, “FAQ: The rebirth of ESA’s ExoMars Rosalind Franklin mission” (launch planned for September 2022, cancellation in July 2022, reuse of hardware from the Russian module). The 1992 date for the Russian agency’s creation could only be confirmed by a tertiary source, which gives February 25, 1992.