RED MOON IN ORBIT

Looking at vintage information regarding the space race is always a fascinating exercise, as besides the wonderful diagrams and illustrations it can turn up, there is a wealth of information waiting to be uncovered. The power granted by the internet means that access to materials which at the time would be impossible to find, let alone view, is now comparatively easy. The Freedom of Information Act, meant that previously top secret documentation can now be viewed without restriction, as the period covered by the classified status has long since expired. 

Such an example appeared recently, whilst I was looking for some image for another post and I found a US Air Force site, showing declassified historical documents. 

One particular post stood out, as it dealt with a 'Sputnik-46' satellite launch. As far as I was aware, there had only been three Sputnik satellite launches, so I was quite intrigued and read  the document. It turned out that it was a report from an Air Force monitoring station, which during the Cold War years, kept a watch on Soviet launches. 'Sputnik-46' was a code name for an object which had been launched from the Tyuratam Base (now Baikonour Cosmodrome) in November 1963. The Soviets had already stolen a march on the West with the orbit of Yuri Gararin in Vostok 1 and the launch of the first artificial satellite Sputnik 1 and would shortly find success with the three man craft Voskhod 1 in 1964. Mindful that the race was on to visit the Moon, either with a manned mission or remote probes, the Soviet Union were desperately trying to send a satellite to either Venus or Mars, to achieve yet another soviet first.

The document in question details the launch and apparent failure of  'Sputnik-46' and gives details of the radar observations of the object. Its interesting to read the message, as it shows the extreme accuracy by which the object could be tracked, with dimensions and descriptions of the orbiting parts, including a tiny plate around a foot long.

 Here is an edited transcript of the main message:

AF IN: 20080 (12 Nov 63)
ON 11 NOVEMBER AT APPROXIMATELY 0625Z THE SOVIET UNION LAUNCHED AN EARTH SATELLITE VEHICLE FROM THE TYURATAM MISSILE TEST RANGE. 
THIS LAUNCH WAS DETECTED BY THE SHEMYA RADAR FACILITY AND LATER RADAR DATA HAS BEEN OBTAINED FROM OTHER SPADATS FACILITIES. 
THIS LAUNCH HAS BEEN DESIGNATED SPUTNIK 46, THREE OBJECTS HAVE BEEN DETECTED IN THIS ORBIT, AND ORBITAL PARAMETERS HAVE BEEN OBTAINED ON TWO OF THESE. 

THE SPUTNIK 46 ORBIT IS A NOMINAL 65 DEGREE INCLINATION ORBIT, AS WE HAVE SEEN ON ALL PREVIOUS LAUNCHES FROM THE TYURATAM MISSILE TEST RANGE EXCEPT FOR SPUTNIK 45. OF THE THREE OBJECTS IN THE SPUTNIK 46 ORBIT, THE TRAILING PIECE HAS BEEN TENTATIVELY IDENTIFIED AS THE PAYLOAD, AND HAS BEEN DESIGNATED SPADATS OBJECT NUMBER 687.

INITAL RADAR SIGNATURE ANALYSIS INDICATES THAT THE ROUGH SHAPE OF OBJECT 687 APPEARS TO BE A CONE-CYLINDER, LENGTH APPROXIMATELY 5 FEET AND DIAMETER APPROXIMATELY 3 FEET. IT APPEARS TO BE TUMBLING WITH A PERIOD OF APPROXIMATELY 5 SECONDS (12RPM). 

THE LEADING OBJECT IN THIS ORBIT HAS BEEN TENTATIVELY IDENTIFIED AS THE INJECTION STAGE ROCKET BODY, AND HAS BEEB DESIGNATED SPADATS OBJECT NUMBER 688.OBJECT 688 IS LEADING OBJECT 687 BY 6.5 MINUTES AS OF REVOLUTION 27. RADAR SIGNATURE ANALYSIS INDICATES THAT OBJECT 688 APPEARS TO BE BASICALLY CYLINDRICAL, PERHAPS WITH A SLIGHT TAPER. LENGTH APPEARS TO BE 10-16 FEET, WITH DIAMETER 4.5-6.5 FEET. 

 

THE REMAINING OBJECT IN THE SPUTNIK 45 ORBIT IS LEADING OBJECT 687 AND LAGGING OBJECT 688. AS OF REVOLUTION 6 IT WAS LEADING OBJECT 687 BY APPROXIMATELY ONE MINUTE. DUE TO THE SMALL SIZE OF THIS OBJECT, THERE HAS NOT BEEN SUFFICIENT RADAR DATA OBTAINED AS YET FOR THE CALCULATION OF ORBITAL PARAMETERS. THEREFORE THIS PIECE HAS NOT RECEIVED A SPADATS OBJECT NUMBER AS YET. RADAR SIGNATURE ANALYSIS INDICATES THAT THIS PIECE APPEARS TO BE A SMALL FRAGMENT, WITH A DIAMETER OF ROUGHLY SIX TO TWELVE INCHES. THERE ARE VERY TENTATIVE INDICATIONS THAT IS SOME SORT OF PLATE. IT IS TUMBLING RAPIDLY WITH A PERIOD OF ROUGHLY 0.7 SECONDS C86 RPM).

NO CONFIRMED TELEMETRY HAS BEEN INTERCEPTED FROM SPUTNIK 46 SINCE INITIAL REVOLUTION. TASS HAS MADE NO ANNOUNCEMENT CONCERNING THIS LAUNCH. THE SOVIETS NORMALLY ANNOUNCE A SUCCESSFUL OPERATION. DUE TO LACK OF TELEMETRY SINCE ZERO REVOLUTION, HIGH TUMBLE RATE OF PAYLOAD, AND ABSENCE OF SOVIET ANNOUNCEMENTS, IT IS TENTATIVELY SUGGESTED THAT THE PAYLOAD HAS FAILED TO PERFORM SUCCESSFULLY. 

FURTHER INFORMATION WILL BE FURNISHED AS AVAILABLE IN VIEW OF THE LACK OF PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS OF THIS LAUNCH, IT IS ANTICIPATED THAT SPADATS BULLETINS ON THIS LAUNCH WILL CONTINUE TO BE ISSUED AT SECRET LEVEL.

I was curious to know what this object may have been, as I was unaware of any probes launched around this time, so turned to the internet for answers. Research indicated that the object had been given the classification of  'Kosmos 21' - Kosmos being a label given to record failed launches or missions, which were not formally disclosed, as the Kremlin was not keen to publicise its failures, as the U.S did. Once more, with the iron curtain having been partly removed over the last few decades, information was more readily available.

The Kosmos 21 mission was to have been a test for a new planetary probe, which would ultimately produce the Venera series of vehicles and was based on the 3MV-1A base model. This included a sealed instrument component and a landing vehicle, attached to a motor unit. Kosmos 21 would have received the official designated of 'Zond 1' and was intended to be launched into high orbit, operate some remote manoeuvres and return to Earth. Unfortunately, due to the haste with which the probe was developed and problems with the Molniya launch vehicle, the final stage of the rocket had misfired and placed Kosmos 21 in an unstable orbit. Further problems had probably resulted in an onboard explosion, disabling the probe and resulting in the debris tail. The probe eventually re-entered the atmosphere and was destroyed. 

Further problems with the 3MV-1A series continued, with a second launch in March the following year, which  left the probe in high orbit. This was designated Kosmos 27. 

Zond 1 made a successful launch as was officially recognised by the Soviet Union, but en route to Venus, problems with the casing led to depressurisation and a failure of the radio transmitter. The probe continued on its journey and silently passed Venus within 100,000 miles.

WHAT IF?

Its always interesting to take a retrospective look at vintage magazines and books dealing with aerospace subjects, especially those which deal with 'near-future' or conceptual projects that were expected to appear within the next five to ten years of publication.

Newsstand magazines like Popular Mechanics, Aviation Week, Colliers and Air Progress all proclaimed that the next big thing would be nuclear powered aircraft, continent hopping airliners and flying cars. Whilst the vehicles may have existed on the drawing board, very few actually saw any kind of development into actual service. The artwork however, is always dynamic and sleek, with streamlined aircraft and jetstreamed spaceships depicting a gleaming future that would never arrive.

Whilst some of the craft seem entirely science fiction, some elements did find their way into production aircraft, such as the ducted fan engines and variable geometry wings.

One or two magazines show experimental aircraft such as the HL-10  and X-24B Lifting bodies in dynamic shots, speeding through space, whereas the reality is actually very different, as neither craft were ever designed to leave the upper atmosphere. 

The much more sedate and serious journals such as Aviation Week, showed a much more sober rendition of the actual craft in their own coverage. 

However, it was nice to dream about being able to board a nuclear powered airliner and streak through the heavens to the other side of the globe in a matter of hours, as opposed to chugging along n a conventional prop driven airliner and the fantastic designs really went a long way towards furthering the dream and selling magazines.

 

RED HAWK DOWN

The JPL Mars helicopter - Ingenuity - which hitched a ride under the mars rover Perseverance, has finally been grounded. three years after its arrival. Originally it was purely only intended as a technology demonstrator with an expected mission duration of just 30 days, the fragile little copter performed 72 individual flights and returned some stunning images of both the terrain and its roving partner. 

Unfortunately, a communications black out on January 18 and a forced landing left Ingenuity with a damaged rotor, meaning it was no longer able to fly. As NASA are unable to effect a repair, the little vehicle was finally decommissioned and left to sit on the martian surface as a monument to its amazing achievements.

Growing up in the sixties at the height of the space race, I was a keen collector of space toys. Tri-ang Spacex and Marx both produced 'space helicopters', which the pedantically realistic me, could not accept as being able to fly on an airless world - especially, the Marx Moon Scout copter, presumably intended for lunar exploration! Helicopter P3 from Tri-ang, did turn out to be an Earth based security patrol craft, which I eventually accepted!

There have been many proposals for small aerial probes to be used to explore Mars, from balloons and dirigibles to gliders and aircraft. Ingenuity proved that a rotor based craft could operate in the thin martian atmosphere and perform its duties remarkably well.

Once again, sixties toy makers seized on the idea of 'space balloons' and the Topper Johnny Astro set, used a controllable fan in the shape of a radar dish to direct a balloon 'capsule' to a safe landing on a plastic lunar terrain, r later on to a small Mars diorama. Its interesting to see the depiction of Mars on the 1967 box art as having large areas of green and the distinctive martian canals.

Plans are being developed for delta winged gliders to operate in the martian atmosphere and the NASA Dragonfly project is aiming to send a multi rotorcraft to Saturns moon Titan some time in 2028.

The Dragonfly Probe will be a much larger and more substantial affair, around the size of a small car. Due to Titan's much thicker atmosphere and thick 1.8 Earth normal gravity, the probe will use four dual rotor mounts. Titan nights last 8 Earth days, during which the probe will be grounded to recharge its batteries via a nuclear isotope.

NOW, VOYAGER

NASA launched Voyager 1 on September 5, 1977, about two weeks after its sibling craft, Voyager 2. More than 46 years later, Voyager 1 is more than 15.1 billion miles from Earth and travels farther away at 38,027 miles per hour, more than 3,000 miles per hour faster than Voyager 2, located 12.67 billion miles from Earth.

Today, communication with the probe is failing, as the Flight Data System, which controls onboard systems, has stopped sending data back to Earth. With a communication delay of almost 23 hours, one way, it may prove impossible to rectify the issue. The technical issue is compounded by the age of the technology - most of the team who originally worked on the project are now dead and the manuals and data for the project only exist in hardcopy files. Voyagers nuclear batteries will shortly fail too, as solar energy is so weak, the probe needed to rely on onboard power.

Voyager 1 and 2 are the most remote man-made craft ever and are now around 22 billion miles away in deep space, at the point of heliopause, where the suns influence is no longer perceptible.

The twin probes are responsible for some of the most amazing images of the outer planets and until other craft visit the outer solar system, the only clear images we have of the ice giants, Neptune and Uranus. Voyager discovered the ring system and several new moons on the outer planets and showed the Jovian and Saturnian satellites with unprecedented clarity.

Even if communication ultimately fails to be restored with the probe and its fellow traveller, it will have made a massive contribution to our understanding of space.

From the late seventies onward, all books featured a section on the Voyager missions, with early volumes showing projected mission outlines and later publications showing some of the astonishingly clear images from the craft.

One of the probes photographs shows Earth taken Feb. 14, 1990, by NASA's Voyager 1 at a distance of 3.7 billion miles (6 billion kilometers) from the Sun. Literally a 'Pale Blue Dot'.

Both probes carry a 'gold disk' featuring symbolic representations of data and a recording of 'Sounds of Earth', curated by Dr Carl Sagan, along with 115 different images, such as 'People Eating' to represent human society.

Some of the planetary imagery has yet to be surpassed in quality, even by the current space based telescopes, such as James Webb and Hubble.

Both probes are currently in interstellar space and leaving the solar system at almost 40,000 mph.