Space laboratory Mars Pathfinder. History of invention and production

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Space laboratory Mars Pathfinder. History of invention and production

The history of technology, technology, objects around us

Directory / The history of technology, technology, objects around us

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Even ancient astrologers and astronomers were fascinated by a strange, it seemed, ominously red planet, so different from all other planets of the solar system. Interest increased many times when, in 1877, D.V. Schiaparelli "discovered" man-made "canals" on Mars.

However, the interest of scientists Mars caused a completely different reason. They believe that understanding the patterns of evolution of the solid shell and deep interior of Mars, the study of the composition and history of the atmosphere and hydrosphere is the key to deciphering the laws of development and not only the Earth, but also a step towards understanding the history of the entire solar system.

The first automatic station went to Mars in the autumn of 1962. It was the Soviet "Mars-1". But she failed to reach the "red" planet. From 1965 to 1969, the American stations Mariner-4, Mariner-6, Mariner-7 transmitted more than two hundred images of the "red" planet.

Space Lab Mars Pathfinder
"Mariner-4"

The road to the surface of Mars was built only in 1971. But two devices did it at once. First, the Soviet automatic station "Mars-2" delivered a capsule to the surface of Mars, and the descent vehicle of the next Soviet station - "Mars-3" - made the first soft landing. At the same time, the natural satellites of Mars, Phobos and Deimos, acquired man-made counterparts: both Soviet stations, together with the American Mariner-9 spacecraft that arrived at Mars, became its first artificial satellites. They allowed people to view Mars in close proximity for the first time.

The next four Soviet automatic stations, launched in 1973, refined the data received from orbits, and the descent vehicle of one of them, Marsa-6, probed the atmosphere of the planet from the inside for the first time. Thus, the next stage in the exploration of Mars was prepared by the joint efforts of the two countries - the Soviet Union and the United States.

Soon two American Viking probes landed on Mars. They transmitted color photographs of the surrounding area to Earth and analyzed the Martian soil, determining its chemical composition. In total, Viking 1 and Viking 2 sent more than fifty thousand images to Earth. But the main thing in their program was the search for life. Automated explorers tried to find organic matter on Mars. Then it was possible to analyze only the dust covering the surface of the planet, to determine more or less accurately the content of iron, magnesium, calcium, aluminum, potassium, sulfur and chlorine in it.

Despite the fact that the stations were 6500 kilometers apart from one another, the results of the analysis coincided. It was concluded that this dust, which probably covers the entire surface of the planet, is the product of weathering, destruction and grinding of the mafic (basic) rocks of Mars.

To achieve better results, it was necessary to break through a layer of Martian dust and determine the chemical composition of the rocks hidden under it. For this, scientists from the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences under the leadership of R.Z. Sagdeev, Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences under the direction of V.L. Barsukov and many other institutions and organizations created penetrators (from the English word "penetrate" - to penetrate). These are special, non-explosive projectiles, inside of which there are devices for chemical analysis. Instruments for the chemical analysis of Martian rocks were installed in the penetrators.

It was supposed to deliver the penetrators to the target by automatic interplanetary stations and drop them from a certain height so that they penetrated several meters deep. But, before dropping the penetrators on Mars, it was decided to use them to study its satellite Phobos. However, in 1989, the Soviet Phobos-1 and Phobos-2 were lost in space. In 1996, the Russian Mars 96 crashed to Earth after launch.

Meanwhile, German, Russian and American scientists and designers, headed by E. Ryder from the German Max-Planck-Institute of Chemistry, by that time managed to create a real miracle of technology for chemical analysis at a distance of tens of millions of kilometers from the Earth. It was these analyzers that were installed on the lost ship "Mars-96". As a result, the analyzer was installed on the American interplanetary automatic station Mars Pathfinder, which was preparing to launch to Mars.

This flight opened up previously inaccessible opportunities. Indeed, the Martian rocks in the Viking expeditions were analyzed using instruments mounted on a metal rod-arm. It was possible to make an analysis only in the literal sense at arm's length. Penetrators, although they can penetrate the bedrock through the dust layer, are able to make analyzes only in certain limited points of the planet.

The American rover Sojourner was supposed to participate in the Pathfinder expedition. On a six-wheeled machine with a length of just over 50 centimeters and a height of 30 centimeters, a solar battery, a laboratory for determining the chemical composition of Martian rocks, and three television cameras were installed. The rover was supposed to drive around the Martian surface and, on command, stop for the necessary measurements. This means that it became possible to study the composition of rocks over a large area, in specially selected areas.

It should be noted that the project is relatively cheap - 266 million dollars - compared, for example, with the cost of the upcoming flight of the American apparatus to Saturn - 1,48 billion dollars.

On July 4, 1997, the American space laboratory "Mars Pathfinder" landed on the surface of Mars. In almost seven months of flight, the Pathfinder traveled 78,6 million kilometers of outer space. On July 4, 1997, the station entered the planet's atmosphere at an altitude of 130 kilometers directly from the flight path at a speed of 7,4 kilometers per second. From overheating (due to the resistance of the Martian air), the station was protected by a heat-insulating shield. A parachute opened nine kilometers from the surface of the planet, and the shield was dropped. 10,1 seconds before landing, at an altitude of 335 meters, air bags were inflated around the lander - shock absorbers of the soft landing system. At an altitude of 100 meters, powder engines fired, which slowed down the fall and took the parachutes away from the lander. After 4 seconds, the module fell to the ground at a speed of about 21 meters per second, jumped up 15 meters and, having made 16 jumps, froze. The air shell was deflated and pulled to the apparatus. The laboratory unfolded the solar panels, raised the camera to the height of human growth and released a miniature rover.

Space Lab Mars Pathfinder
mars pathfinder

“A plain was chosen as the landing site for the station,” writes Ilya Vinogradov in the Kommersant newspaper, “bearing the name of the Greek god of war Ares. It is most favorable for the operation of solar panels that ensure the operation of the station. Pathfinder immediately set several records. The station became the first space a device that landed on a planet without first entering orbit; released a parachute at supersonic speed; used air bags similar to those used in cars, but larger in size, to reduce the effects of landing shock.

The festive atmosphere that reigned in NASA after the successful landing of the Pathfinder was quickly spoiled by the problems that arose in the operation of the station. The fabric of the air bag, tangled on the launch platform, prevented the Sojourner remote-controlled robot delivered to Mars, equipped with instruments for spectral analysis of Martian soil samples, from starting to move. NASA specialists managed to clear the path, but then it turned out that malfunctions in the main modem of the robot led to the loss of the ability to remotely control the device. However, this time NASA was on top, the rover was brought to the surface of the planet and began transmitting images to Earth."

The results of the first test analysis of the Martian air were eagerly awaited on Earth. And here comes the good news. "Sojourner" showed almost one hundred percent concentration of carbon dioxide, as it actually is in the atmosphere of this planet. It was possible to start studying the chemical composition of the rocks of Mars.

To determine the composition of Martian rocks, it was decided to use penetrating X-rays. The equipment for this, its creators - German, Russian and American scientists called APXS (alpha-proton-X-ray spectrometer).

“The heart of the APX spectrometer,” Yu.A. Shukoliukov writes in the Soros Educational Journal, “was created by a group of Russian researchers led by V. Radchenko at the Institute of Atomic Reactors in Dimitrovgrad near Ulyanovsk. It is made from the transuranium artificial chemical element curium, more precisely , from one isotope of this element - curium-244. The total amount of curium-244 in it is such that the source emits almost 2 billion alpha particles every second, each with an energy of about 6 million electron volts.

Flying through the substance under study, many of the alpha particles easily knock out electrons from the inner K- or L-shells of atoms. Electrons jump to the vacated places from higher energy levels from other electron shells. Energy is released in the form of gamma quanta of characteristic X-rays. Each chemical element with its own electron shells has its own radiation spectrum - a set of specific energy quanta. To register these quanta, a detector is used - a 256-channel energy analyzer. Each channel in it counts only "its" quanta of a certain energy. The set of counted number of quanta with different energies is the X-ray spectrum of the Martian rock. It is not easy to decipher, because it is the result of superposition of the spectra of different elements present in the sample.

For interpretation, standards of different, previously known chemical composition are prepared and their X-ray spectra are compared with the spectrum of the analyzed rock. According to the composition of the standard, the spectrum of which is closest to the spectrum of the sample under study, the content of elements in the sample is judged. Calculations are made on computers using special programs.

The X-ray analyzer recorded the spectra. He could do this only at temperatures below minus 30 degrees Celsius. At a higher temperature, the analyzer is no longer able to distinguish well between quanta of different energies. Of course, it was possible to cool the detector with a miniature onboard refrigerator. But in the end they acted differently. To save precious electrical energy on Mars, they decided to take advantage of the fact that the planet itself becomes a huge refrigerator at night with a temperature of up to minus 80 degrees.

The rover also carried a proton detector and another instrument that uses Rutherford alpha particle scattering.

The information received from three detectors is then sent to a three-channel electronic unit capable of storing it and preparing it for transmission to Earth. For this block, a container measuring 7x8x6,5 centimeters was required. At the same time, the APX spectrometer itself has such dimensions that it easily fits in a tea cup. A whole laboratory weighing only 570 grams.

So, moving from one point to another, "Sojourner" using the APX spectrometer again and again analyzed the reddish-brown dust of a distant planet lying under the wheels. Measurements were taken at six locations, remote from each other. But everywhere the chemical composition was almost the same.

But the researchers were in for a surprise. On July 6, 1997, Sojourner poked its sensitive electronic nose, a swivel-mounted chemical composition instrument, into a fairly large rock. Much to the surprise of Mars explorers, this rock, dubbed Barnacle Bill, turned out to have a chemical composition that was completely different from what was expected from all previous studies of Mars.

For the first time in the history of science, analyzes of Martian bedrock have yielded a sensational result - there are not only mafic rocks on Mars. It is believed that pieces of rocks in the Pathfinder landing area could have been brought there by streams of water from rivers that once ran across the planet, from a hill to the south, possibly representing the ancient Martian crust. Its antiquity is evidenced by the abundance of meteorite craters on it.

New data obtained in the Pathfinder expedition overturned previous ideas about Mars. It turned out that the crust of the "red" planet is chemically similar to the Earth's crust. It is possible that processes were going on on Mars, in many respects similar to geological manifestations on Earth. The chemical and petrological features of Martian meteorites are quite consistent with such ideas.

Author: Musskiy S.A.

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A new form of amorphous ice has been obtained 07.02.2023

A team of British chemists has ground ordinary ice in a ball mill at a temperature of 77 kelvins and obtained a new form of amorphous ice. This is the name of ice, which, unlike crystalline ice, Ih does not have an ordered molecular structure. The open form was stable at atmospheric pressure up to 1,1 gigapascals. Scientists gave it the name amorphous ice of medium density.

The phase diagram of water reveals about 20 of its crystalline forms, as well as two amorphous phases, characterized by a lack of order in the arrangement of molecules. The latter are divided into two types: amorphous ice of high and low density. At atmospheric pressure and a temperature of 77 kelvins, the first has a density of 1,13 g per cubic centimeter, and the second - 0,94 g per cubic centimeter. At the same time, they have been known since the last century, and no amorphous forms of ice have been found during this time in the density interval between them.

However, the curiosity of scientists does not weaken, because it is amorphous ice that is believed to be the most common in the universe. And in their work, chemists from University College London were able to find a previously unknown form of amorphous ice.

In their experiments, the scientists used the ball mill method, which is popular for studying amorphous forms of materials. With its help, amorphization occurs through interaction with balls that affect the crystals with compression and shear forces, introducing defects. For ice, this method had not been used before, so in their work, chemists were the first to decide to grind ordinary Ih ice in such a mill. To do this, they cooled it to the temperature of liquid helium - 77 kelvins - added stainless steel balls to the ice, and then shook them together. For 80 cycles of such grinding, scientists received a sample, the analysis of which indicated that they had managed to acquire a new amorphous form of ice.

The general appearance of the ice obtained in the mill is large pieces of densely packed powder, the density of which scientists estimated at 1,06 g per cubic centimeter. This value is just in the gap between the already known low-density and high-density amorphous ice, so scientists gave the new form the name medium-density amorphous ice. Comparisons of the diffraction characteristics of all three forms indicate that the ice discovered by chemists has a unique structure. With an increase in pressure (and at a constant temperature of 77 kelvins), after the mark of 1,1 gigapascals, the ice begins to turn into amorphous ice of high density.

Grinding other phases of ice (II, IX and V) in the same way did not bring new forms to scientists, which may indicate that it is "ordinary" ice l that is especially subject to amorphization.

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