The last gasp: Mars-96

TIMELINE: 1989-1996

The Soviet Union had planned to follow up their Phobos mission with a surface investigation of Mars. This was originally scheduled for launch in 1992 but funding was delayed and the launch date had to be postponed until 1994. The plan called for two orbiters to be launched in 1994., each of which would deploy a balloon into the atmosphere and small landers onto the surface, the launch of two orbiters in 1996 to deploy rovers onto the surface, and the launch of a sample return mission in 1998. In a revision, the plan was descoped to a single orbiter in 1994 carrying small landers and penetrators and a second orbiter in 1996 carrying the balloon and a rover. After the fall of the Soviet Union, further funding difficulties in the new Russia resulted in the launch of the 1994 mission being postponed to 1996 and the launch of the 1996 mission being postponed to 1998. But the technical and funding problems involved in building Mars-96 made it obvious that the 1998 mission would never materialize. The continuing problems with Russian suppliers and with government funding for development and test were frustrating to the Russians, and a source of consternation to the international community supplying science investigations for the mission. All of which led to massive disappointment when the launch failed on November 16, 1996. The propulsion sequence involving the second burn of the Block D stage and subsequent boost by the spacecraft’s own Fregat propulsion module went awry.

The loss of Mars-96 was tragic for the Russian planetary exploration program that had been losing support in the fiscally strapped government. The US had suffered its iirst major tragedy at Mars in 1993 with the loss of Mars Observer shortly prior to arrival at the planet. But the US had recovered, by establishing a new series of Mars missions and had launched the first one. Mars Global Surveyor, 9 days prior to the Mars-96 debacle. The Mars Pathfinder mission was launched on December 4, and went on to successfully land on the planet and deploy a small rover, thereby erasing a goal that the Russians had been working towards for more than a decade.

W. T. Huntress and M. Y. Marov, Soviet Robots in the Solar System: Mission Technologies,’vS ‘

and Discoveries, Springer Praxis Hooks 1, DOl 10.1007/978-1-4419-7898-1_20,

© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011

Launch date

1989

4 May Magellan Venus orbiter

18 Oct Galileo Jupiter orbiter/probc

1990

24 Jan Hiten lunar fiyby/orbiter

1991

No missions

1992

25 Sep Mars Observer orbiter

1993

No missions

1994

25 Jan Clementine lunar orbiter

1995

No missions

1996

17 Feb Near Earth Asteroid rdv

1 Nov Mars Globa] Surveyor

16 Nov Mars-96 orbiter/landcrs

4 Dec Mars Pathfinder lander/rover

Mars-96 was the last gasp in the storied history of Soviet lunar and planetary exploration in the 20th Century.