The Soviet victory in the Moon Race and American determination to achieve their own historic milestone in space exploration ensured that the Space Race would continue into the 1970s unabated, despite its significant financial cost to both sides. The 1970s would be notable for major advances in the mapping of our nearest celestial neighbours Mars and Venus, as well as the construction of space stations, advancement of spaceplane technology and the first fledgling colonisation of Luna.
As they had become accustomed to, the Soviets maintained an initial lead in the development of space station technology. The
Salyut ("Salute" or "Fireworks" depending on context) Programme in which the first space stations deployed by the USSR were conceived had a twofold purpose: the first being to engage in scientific research and the second, covert reason, to engage in militarily-useful reconnaissance. The Salyut Programme was designed to also make gradual refinements to the design and use of space stations with the aim of, sometime in the future, creating fully-habitable and modular space stations. The Salyut Programme was overseen by Kerim Kerimov, an Azeri (Soviet Azerbaijan, not the APG) engineer and general who had been graduated from the Azerbaijan Industrial Institute during the Great Patriotic War, and had continued his education at the Dzerzhinsky Artillery Academy, where he had developed an interest in rocketry. Kerimov had been a consistent presence in the development of Soviet rocket technology from its humble beginnings (the
Katyusha) to the ICBM programme. Construction of
Salyut 1 began in 1970 and within a year was being finally assembled at Baikonur Cosmodrome.
Salyut 1 was launched on April 19th, 1971. The first crew, launched aboard
Soyuz 10 ran into docking issues and their mission was aborted; they returned to Earth safely. A replacement crew on
Soyuz 11, consisting of cosmonauts Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov and Viktor Patsayev reached
Salyut 1 and remained onboard for 23 days. This set a new record for time spent in space. Onboard
Salyut 1, Patsayev became the first person to operate a telescope outside of Earth's atmosphere, using the onboard
Orion 1 Space Observatory designed by Armenian astronomer Grigor Gurzadyan. Tragically, the incorrect firing of explosive bolts during reentry loosened a seal that maintained cabin pressure. The sudden depressurisation of the reentry module resulted in the asphyxiation of all three cosmonauts, who became the first men to die in space. The three cosmonauts hadn't been wearing pressure suits due to limited space in the
Soyuz capsule, which resulted in a complete redesign of the capsule in order to ensure that during all future missions cosmonauts could wear the
Sokol suits during reentry. The new
Soyuz 7K-T capsule would only house two cosmonauts, however.
Salyut 2 was the first
Almaz ("Diamond") station, which were
Salyut stations with a military application, although that purpose was kept concealed from public knowledge.
Salyut 2 lost altitude within two weeks of its launch and it reentered the atmosphere on 28th May 1973 without any crew having ever visited the station. The third Salyut station was launched on 11th May 1973, three days before the launch of the American
Skylab. Errors in its flight control system caused it to fire its attitude thruster until all fuel to the thruster was emptied, and it became uncontrollable. Aware that the spacecraft was already in orbit and as such would have been picked up on Western radar systems, the Soviets designated the launch as "
Kosmos 557" to save face by disguising the fact that one of their
Salyut stations had utterly failed. It would quietly reenter Earth's atmosphere and burn up a week later.
Artist's representation of Salyut 1
The American
Skylab endeavour had its origins in the Manned Orbital Laboratory project of the 1960s, which had been delayed and eventually cancelled as a result of budget cuts and reallocation of resources to other projects. After Aldrin's Moon landing, elements of the MOL project were resurrected as part of the Gemini Applications Programme (GAP) [242]. AGAP would involve several different projects, most of which would be folded into the
Skylab programme. This included a manned survey mission, a specialised space telescope mission and the construction of a relatively low-budget space station. The McDonnell-Douglas Corporation would received a contract to convert two
Saturn IV-B stages to the so-called "Orbital Workshop" configuration. The Orbital Workshop was renamed
Skylab as the result of a contest held by NASA.
Skylab was launched on 14th May 1973 onboard a modified
Saturn V rocket. Severe damaged was sustained, with the loss of
Skylab's micrometeoroid shield/sun shade and one of its main solar panels. To make matters worse, debris from the lost shield became tangled in the remaining solar panel, leaving
Skylab with a major power deficit as well as exposing it to more sunlight than intended.
Skylab 2, also known as SLM-1 ("Skylab Manned-1") was a mission launched on a Big Gemini command and service module (CSM) carrying astronauts Pete Conrad, Joseph P. Kerwin and Paul J. Weitz to the station. The mission was initially supposed to launch on May 15th, the very day after the launch of the station, but the extensive repairs necessary forced a delay as the astronauts were trained in methods to repair the damage to
Skylab. On May 25th, the three astronauts launched. After multiple failed docking attempts, the astronauts eventually were able to access
Skylab; however not before ground control purged the space station multiple times with nitrogen four times before filling it with a nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere for the crew. This brought down temperatures in the station, which with the destruction of the shade had reached high temperatures which were melting insulation and releasing toxic fumes into the air. The astronauts then deployed an ingenious parasol-like device designed by Jack Kinzler, who was nicknamed Mr. Fix-It. Kinzler would be awarded a Distinguished Service Medal for his effort. The collapsible parasol was deployed through a small airlock onboard, solving the shade problem without necessitating a dangerous spacewalk. Two weeks later, Conrad and Kerwin performed an EVA, freeing the stuck solar panel and thereby increasing the power supply to the workshop. A nerve-wracking moment occurred when the sudden deployment of the solar panels flung both astronauts away from the hull. Without their safety tethers, or if the tethers snapped, they would have been doomed. However they regained their composure and were able to pull themselves back to the station. The three astronauts would continue to make repairs to the station and engage in scientific experiments before returning to Earth on June 22nd, when their return capsule splashed into the Pacific Ocean less than 10km away from the rescue ship USS
Ticonderoga. They had been in space a total of 28 days, surpassing the record set by the perished cosmonaut troika.
SLM-2 would go on for even longer, just shy of two months, and would focus on collecting medical information about the human body's response to prolonged time in space. The last
Skylab mission, SLM-3, placed three rookie astronauts onboard the station: Gerald Carr, Edward G. Gibson and William Pogue. The trio of SLM-3 astronauts were surprised to find on arrival three figures in the station, dummies left as a joke by the SLM-2 crew. The mission was marred from the beginning by tensions between the astronauts and the ground control crew: first they were admonished by Astronaut Office chief Alan Shepard for attempting to hide Pogue's early space sickness (a phenomenon somewhat similar to sea sickness experienced by around half of astronauts/cosmonauts in space) from flight surgeons, which ground control had discovered from downloaded flight recording data; then they struggled to match the workload of their predecessors, irritating ground control to no end. To be fair to the crew of SLM-3, however, their mission involved a particularly heavy initial workload in unloading and stowing thousands of items required for experiments, and a number of extra tasks had been added on near launch with little time for pre-mission adaptation. A radio conference to air frustrations resulted in a reduction of mission workload, and by the end of the mission the crew had in fact surpassed the adjusted workload expectation. SLM-3 took a number of high quality photographs of the Earth's surface (including unintentionally photographing Area 51, causing a minor interagency dispute regarding publication of the pictures), took the first film of a solar flare's birth, and took 75,000 images of the sun on various spectrums (X-Ray, ultraviolet, etc.). They also took images of the comet
Kohoutek. The mission was notable for an unintentional communications failure between the fatigued crew and ground control. This was inaccurately spun by media back in the United States of a "space mutiny". The SLM-3 mission would return to Earth on February 8th, 1974, having spent 84 days in space.
The second
Almaz station, designated
Salyut 3, was launched on June 25th 1974, and was the first Soviet military space station to be launched successfully. Launched from
Soyuz 14, Cosmonauts Pavel Popovich and Yuri Artyukhin spent 15 days on the space station, testing
Almaz station systems, effects of space station occupation on the human body, and using a high-resolution camera to take photographs of Earth. Popovich and Artyukhin returned to Earth on July 19th. A follow up mission on
Salyut 3 was supposed to be sent on
Soyuz 15, but failure of the notoriously unreliable
Igla docking system forced a mission abort. Cosmonauts Gennady Sarafanov and Lev Dyomin returned to Earth safely.
Salyut 3 was instead abandoned to a fate of natural orbital reentry and disintegration, although before falling to the atmosphere its onboard armament, a Richter R-23 aircraft autocannon.
Salyut 4, a copy of
Kosmos 557, was a complete success and gathered a great deal of information about X-Rays emanating from distance celestial bodies.
Salyut 5 was the last
Almaz station, and was equipped with the
Agat Earth observation camera, as well as an experimental crystal furnace produced in the German Democratic Republic which was used to perform artificial crystal growth experiments. The first of the four planned missions to
Salyut 5, sent on
Soyuz 21 on 6th July 1976, engaged in scientific research alongside their reconnaissance duties; this included studying aquarium fish in microgravity and observing the Sun. The cosmonauts Boris Volynov and Vitali Zholobov even conducted a televised conference with school pupils in order to promote science and technology amongst Soviet youths. This duo was forced to return to Earth a little earlier than expected due to a fuel leak contaminating the artificial atmosphere on the station. Another mission to
Salyut 5, aboard
Soyuz 23, was forced to abort due to yet another issue with the
Igla system. The most dramatic part of the
Soyuz 23 mission was actually the return to Earth, as the capsule carrying Vyacheslav Zudov and Valery Rozhdestvensky plunged into the partially-frozen Lake Tengiz, a saline lake in north-central Kazakhstan. Situated in boggy marshland, it necessitated a complex rescue operation which took nine hours.
Soyuz 23 was the first Soviet splashdown, and it was completely unintentional.
Soyuz 24 saw the transport of cosmonauts Viktor Gorbatko and Yury Glazkov to
Salyut 5. Gorbatko and Glazkov managed to vent the contaminated air, and they engaged in a few more experiments before returning back to Earth. A planned fourth mission to
Salyut 5 was cancelled due to a lack of fuel on the
Salyut 5 as a result of the leak.
The
Salyut 6 was the first of the so-called "second generation" orbital space stations. A massive improvement on the first five of the
Salyut series,
Salyut 6 boasted two docking ports, allowing two spacecraft to dock at the station at once, a BST-1M multispectral telescope and a brand-new propulsion system. The station also was equipped with far improved habitation facilities, including soundproofed machinery, designated sleeping cots, a shower, and a gymnasium.
Salyut 6 was a key part of the
Interkosmos programme, where cosmonauts from fraternal nations accompanied Soviet space missions.
Interkosmos missions were diplomatically valuable, including Warsaw Pact and other allied nations in the technological advancements of the socialist
primus inter pares, and capturing the imaginations of the publics of those countries. Whilst the Americans had, at least temporarily, abandoned the development of orbital space stations, the Salyut programme was not only a major success, but would continue into the 1980s.
Russian postage stamp commemorating Soviet-Indochinese Interkosmos mission, circa 1980
Despite largely conceding primacy in the development of orbital space stations to the USSR, the Americans continued to lead the way in spaceplane technology. The major spaceplane project pursued through the 1970s was the Space Shuttle programme. Announced in 1968 by George Mueller of the NASA Office of Manned Space Flight, the working concept was for a reusable shuttle that could operate in orbit, and would be able to be outfitted for a variety of purposes, including space station resupply, satellite repair and potentially even more exotic missions such as space rescue, anti-satellite warfare or use as a space tug to a lunar base. Given the scope and complexity to the project, as well as the security necessary around it, the contracting and development schedule was adjusted from the norm; instead of the typical process, where one of the large aerospace companies would acquire the contract for the whole programme, instead development was divided into four phases, most of which would have their own contractor attached. In December of 1968, NASA established the Space Shuttle Task Group (SSTG), tasked with determining the optimal design for the reusable spacecraft and issued study contracts to General Dynamics, Lockheed, McDonnell Douglas and North American Rockwell. The aggregated study by the SSTG after consideration of contractors' proposals created three classes with which to categorise future reusable shuttles. Class I was simply a reusable orbiter mounted on expendable boosters. Class II incorporated multiple expendable boosters and a single propellant tank. Class III would boast both a reorbital orbiter and a reusable booster. Most aerospace engineers favoured the Class III, and development went ahead looking to produce a Class III space shuttle. Max Faget patented a design for a fully-recoverable straight-winged orbiter mounted on a straight-winged booster. This design was rejected, however, as the USAF Flight Dynamics Laboratory argued that such a design would not be able to withstand the high thermal and aerodynamic stresses during reentry, and as such would not provide the cross-range capability necessary for a spaceplane. USAF also required a larger payload than Faget's design could achieve. In January 1971, USAF and NASA finally decided on a reusable delta-wing orbiter mounted on an expendable propellant tank.
USAF expected the Space Shuttle to launch large satellites, and required it to be capable of lifting 29,000kg to an eastward LEO or 18,000 kg into a polar orbit. The satellite designs also required the Space Shuttle have a 4.6m x 18m payload bay. NASA evaluated the F-1 and J-2 engines from the
Saturn rockets but determined that they were insufficient for the Space Shuttle. In July 1971 it issued a contract to Rocketdyne to begin development on a new engine for the shuttle, the RS-25. After review of 29 potential designs for the Space Shuttle, it was determined that a two-booster design should be used. Solid-propellant boosters were selected, primarily for costing reasons but also due to ease of refurbishment after splashdown return of the boosters. The final Space Shuttle design was approved in January 1972 by President Jackson [243]. Development of the Space Shuttle Main Engine was assigned to Rocketdyne, whilst the contract for the orbiter was given to North American Rockwell, the external tank contract to Martin Marietta and the solid-propellant booster contract to Morton Thiokol. Beginning of the development of the RS-25 Engine units was delayed for nine months while Pratt & Whitney unsuccessfully challenged the contract issued to Rocketdyne. One of the challenging elements of the development process for NASA was the creation of the Space Shuttle's thermal protection system. A sophisticated means of cladding the Space Shuttle was necessary to tolerate the extreme temperature change between outer space and the atmosphere, not to mention the massive heat generated as a result of friction whilst pushing out of and back into the atmosphere. Previous NASA spacecraft had used ablative ("fall away") heat shields, but those could not be reused. It was decided that ceramic tiles would be used for thermal protection, as the Shuttle could then be constructed out of relatively lightweight aluminium, with tiles replaced individually as needed. On June 4th, 1974, Rockwell began construction on a test orbiter, OV-101, dubbed
Constitution (later renamed to
Enterprise, both references to science fiction show Star Trek). Construction began on an actual orbiter,
Columbia, on March 27th, 1975 and would be ready for deployment from April 1979. Throughout 1979, NASA commissioned a number of other Space Shuttle units. In the meanwhile, the
Enterprise went through a number of flight tests with the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, a Boeing 747 that had been modified to carry the orbiter. No Space Shuttle would actually be launched into space until the 1980s.
The initial Soviet response to the Space Shuttle programme was to resurrect in 1974 the Spiral Programme, which had commenced in 1965 and been halted in 1969. Based on limited initial intelligence about the Space Shuttle, the Soviets believed that the Americans were constructing another "normal" spaceplane along the lines of the X-20. The Spiral Programme would end up producing the MiG-105 spaceplane. The test vehicle made its first subsonic freeflight test in 1976, taking off under its own power from an old airstrip near Moscow. Eight flight tests would be made sporadically until 1978. Soviet engineers opted for the MiG-105 to utilise a mid-air launch scheme. This would involve the spaceplane and a liquid-fuel booster being launched at high altitude from a custom-built hypersonic jet mothership. The mothership would be constructed by the Tupolev Design Bureau and incorporate technologies developed for the Tu-144 supersonic transport and the Sukhoi T-4 Mach 3 bomber. The MiG-105's overall silhouette was that of a conventional delta-wing design, but featured innovative dihydral wings. During launch and reentry, these were folded upward at 60 degrees. After dropping to subsonic speeds after reentry, the pilot lowers the wings into the horizontal position, giving the spaceplane better re-entry and flight characteristics. The MiG-105 was built to allow for a powered landing and go-around maneuver in case of a missed landing. The MiG-105 featured an air intake for a single Kolerov turbojet which was mounted beneath the central vertical stabiliser. The air intake was protected during launch and reentry by a 'clamshell' door which would automatically open at subsonic speed. Like the Space Shuttle programme, Spiral needed to utilise advanced materials technology to make their spaceplane operational. The MiG-105 was protected by what its engineers referred to as "scale-plate armour", comprised of Niobium alloy VN5AP and molybdenum disilicate-covered steel plates mounted on articulated ceramic bearings to allow for thermal expansion whilst maintaining structural integrity. The MiG-105 was much smaller than the American Space Shuttle, and resembled an exotic version of a fighter jet. As such, it was designed for only one crew member.
Mikoyan-Gurevich 105 spaceplane test model; nicknamed "Lapot" due to its upcurved nose, resembling a traditional bast shoe
Having both placed men on the Moon, the superpowers sought to continue their contest on the Earth's natural satellite. Since the late 1950s and early 1960s, both the USSR and the USA had harboured designs on the establishment of semi-permanent bases on Luna. The Americans had considered the feasibility of a lunar base back in 1959, under the codename Project Horizon. Project Horizon was rejected by President Eisenhower, and if pursued would almost certainly have failed due to technical limitations: it was estimated to require 147
Saturn A-1 rocket launches to send spacecraft components which would have to be assembled in Low Earth Orbit. By the 1970s, the production of superboosters improved the feasibility of a moonbase. In the post-lunar expeditionary phase, President Jackson insisted on the pursuit of this new challenge. Heinz-Hermann Koelle, a Danziger who had been in von Braun's Peenemünde team was appointed to head the Saturn Development Programme that would ensure the booster rockets were prepared for travel to the Moon and transport of lunar base components. The actual moonbase design and manufacture would be overseen by the Gemini Applications Programme, which had been established in 1966 to formulate spaceflight missions with scientific purpose using hardware developed for the Advanced Gemini programmes. The GAP would end up being extremely expensive endeavours, with its first year (1967) of operation eating up around only $80 million dollars due to Percy's focus on urban resurrection programmes, but a sudden increase to over a billion dollars the following year as Jackson entered office[244]. The outline of the proposed Moonbase mission was to see an uncrewed
Saturn V ferry a shelter modelled after the Gemini CSM on the Moon. A 3-person team would have a surface stay time of nearly 200 days, and would have access to a lunar rover, as well as logistics vehicles to construct a large shelter. This would be preceded by a couple of Moon landings, similar to Aldrin's expedition except with 3-man teams in order to develop experience for the astronauts in question. By 1973 this phase would be effectively complete, the Americans having made four lunar landings. On September 15th, 1974, a year behind schedule, the "Lunar Exploration Phase" would be commenced. Astronauts Ronald Evans, Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt flew to the Moon onboard the Extended Lunar Module, which was a modification of the standard Gemini hardware and they stayed 3 days. On June 3rd 1975, a single Lunar Orbital Survey mission was completed, and would be the last flight of a Gemini spacecraft. It achieved a 28-day lunar polar orbit mission surveying wide swatches of the northern half of the Moon. A location for the American lunar base was decided, and was actually one of the sites mentioned in the original Project Horizon documentation: an area on the southwest of the Mare Imbrium, just to the north of the Montes Apenninus mountains. The Mare Imbrium is a massive crater formed by the collision of a proto-planet into the Moon around four billion years ago. It takes a form of a flat volcanic plain as a result of later flooding of basaltic lava into the crater. As such, it is relatively flat compared to the rest of Luna's pockmarked face. In 1978, the United States launched multiple
Saturn V rockets to the site, alongside remote controllable lunar rovers. This was followed up with Saturn-Romulus, the transport of a six-man team of astronauts headed by Stuart Roosa. The lunar expeditionary team would spend 14 days on the Moon, assembling the base, which was named
Outpost Republic (in reference to both the United States and Rome, in allusion to the camp's proximity to the Montes Apenninus formation) and collecting regolith samples. Logistically, preparations hadn't yet been made to ensure constant habitation due to a political need to rapidly see results for the massive investment of the lunar base programme. As such the astronauts left after 14 days rather than having a permanent rotational presence at the base as had been the plan in the late 1960s. Periodic visitation to the site would continue for years to come.
Not to be outdone, the Soviets had also harboured their own designs on the colonisation of Luna. From 1962 to 1974 Project
Zvezda ("Star") was being worked on with the objective of establishing a permanent moonbase. Korolev had assigned
Zvezda to the Spetcmash bureau, headed by Vladimir Barmin. As such, the project was nicknamed "Barmingrad" by the engineers who actually worked on it. The broad plan was for a main habitation module to be delivered to the Moon. In keeping with Soviet space doctrine, which emphasised automation wherever possible, a
Lunakhod robotic rover would be delivered, followed by a human crew and more modules that would make up the rest of the camp. In order to allow for exploration or repositioning of the base, the habitation modules would be installed on wheels and would be able to be docked together to form a train. Energy would be provided by a nuclear reactor, and atomic batteries would also be carried to allow for energy use in transit. There would be nine modules in total, each with dimensions of 8.6m x 3.3m. Every individual module would have its own specialised purpose (control, laboratories, medical, dining, relaxation etc.). These modules would all have 3 layers of protection, from micrometeorites, heat and ultraviolet rays. The "train" would also be equipped with a manipulator arm to enable soil collection samples without having to leave the train. Potable water would be made through artificial chemical reactions. The
Zvezda mission was designed to have a crew of 9-12 cosmonauts. Whilst the
Zvezda programme would never come to fruition, many elements of it were folded into Glushko's 1974 proposal for a moonbase, the
LEK Lunar Expeditionary Complex.
LEK was intended by Glushko to be transported to the Moon by a new super-heavy launcher design of his, the
Vulkan. With development of the Vulkan still ongoing, the
LEK base was expected to be operational in 1980. But political intervention pushed this timetable forward, with the Central Committee insisting, on the recommendation of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, that the
LEK utilise the
N1-L3 super-heavy launcher that Korolev had designed. As much as Glushko disliked Korolev, and as much as he tried to avoid use of the
N1-L3 wherever possible, he in the end did as he told. The
N1-L3 would be used to ferry the components to the moonbase. There were some delays, notably due to the unexplained failure of the first
Lunakhod shortly after its arrival, but in the end the
LEK proposal would be achieved in 1978. Several of the more ambitious elements of Zvezda couldn't be done, however. Concerned at the levels of solar radiation hitting the surface of the Moon, the Soviets opted to build their moonbase under a layer of regolith. In order to achieve this, a specialised vehicle, the Lunar Engineering Machine (LIM) travelled to the Moon with the 10-man cosmonaut team headed by Oleg Makarov. The LIM utilised an innovative four-cylinder internal combustion engine with self-igniting rocket propellant that could operate despite lunar conditions. The LIM dug into the regolith near the landing site in the Sea of Tranquility, and piled up the displaced ground into a wall around the camp. The Americans had actually beaten the Russians to the establishment of a moonbase, but as the Soviets pointed out, their's actually was permanent, with a nuclear power source and a rotating crew. The moonbase, named Zvezda, although jokingly referred to by the cosmonauts as
Yezhikovo (from Yezhik - "Hedgehog") due to the burrowed modules. Into the 1980s, Moonbase Zvezda would gradually be modestly expanded, mostly with storage tanks for food and water and a few improvements on recreation for the sake of the cosmonauts' mental health.
Moonbase concept from magazine for Soviet youth. Whilst the actual moonbase Zvezda would look very different, note several ideas utilised, such as subterranean (sublunarean?) living and automated rovers.
With competition between Moscow and Washington still neck and neck on the Moon, both superpowers looked to our next closest celestial neighbours for a new frontier of exploration. The distances involved made unmanned space probes the only practical method for early exploration beyond Earth's magnetoshere. The first American space probes were tasked with travel to the Moon in the 1958-1960
Pioneer programme. The Pioneer programme was restarted in 1965, this time tasked with collecting data about conditions in space.
Pioneers 6,
7,
8 and
9 were a series of solar-orbiting, spin-stabilised satellites designed for the study of interplanetary phenomena such as solar wind, solar magnetic fields and cosmis rays. These vehicles also acted as the world's first space-based solar weather network, providing data on solar storms which could interfere with communcations on Earth. The Pioneer programme also collected valuable information regarding ionic charges and other energy fields in space. Despite being expected to have only a six-month lifespan, the Pioneer probes would continue to be active to this day, and has been one of the best-value programmes NASA ever engaged in, having cost a very small sum relative to other space exploration programmes.
The Mariner programme ran from 1962 to 1973, and were tasked with exploration of Mars and Venus.
Mariner 1,
3 and
8 all experienced launch failures.
Mariner 2 successfully achieved a Venus flyby and
Mariner 4 completed a Mars flyby.
Mariner 5 would also be sent to Venus, this time with equipement designed to measure magnetic fields and the Venusian atmospheric composition.
Mariners 6 and
7 were launched in a dual mission to flyby Mars, and both achieved their missions.
Mariner 9 was a Mars orbiter mission (as had been the ill-fated
Mariner 8) and managed to enter Martian orbit on 14th November 1971. The last of the Mariner spacecraft,
Mariner 10, achieved a historic double flyby, both passing Venus and becoming the first space probe to achieve a flyby of Mercury.
Building on the knowledge developed through pursuit of the Mariner programme, the Viking programme sought to land American probes on the Martian surface. The mission effort began in 1968, but both
Viking probes would land in 1976. Each spacecraft was composed of two parts: an orbiter designed to photograph the surface of Mars, and a lander designed to study the planet from the surface. The orbiters would also serve the purpose of a communications relay between the lander and Earth. Both
Viking missions were launched on Titan IIIE rockets equipped with a Centaur upper stage.
Viking 1 launched on 20th August 1975, entered areocentric (Martian) orbit on 19th June 1976, and the lander touched down on 20th July 1976.
Viking 2 launched on September 9th 1975, entered areocentric orbit on 7th August 1976 and the lander touched down on 3rd September 1976. The Viking programme made a number of discoveries that justified its $1 billion budget. One of the most significant was the uncovering of so-called "chaos terrain" found on Mars, a type of environment that had no parallels on Earth. These were believed to have been formed by the thaw of subterranean ice, flooding the land from below. The thaw is theorised to have been caused by subterranean volcanism. Other features of the Martian surface, including huge river valleys made it undeniable that Mars had once held significant bodies of surface water.
In 1977 the Voyager programme was commenced, seeking to take advantage of a favourable alignment of our solar system's gas giants (Jupiter and Saturn) with it's ice giants (Uranus and Neptune). The programme involved the launch of two probes.
Voyager 2, despite its name, was the first to be launched.
Voyager 2's trajectory was designed to allow flybys of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. The reason it was designated
Voyager 2 is that it was launched on a wider trajectory, meaning
Voyager 1 would inevitably overtake it.
Voyager 1 was sent on a shorter trajectory to provide an optimal flyby of Saturn's moon Titan. A number of fascinating observations were made, with charting of Jupiter's complex cloud forms, winds and storm systems and the discovery of volcanic activity on Io, a moon of Jupiter. Saturn's rings were found to have a number of complex patterns in its composition. At Uranus, Voyager 2 would discover a substantial magnetic field around the planet and discover ten more moons that were previously unknown to man. A flyby of Neptune would uncover three rings and six new moons, a planetary magnetic field and complex, widely distributed auroras.
Trajectories of Voyager spacecraft
1978 would see the
Pioneer Venus project, consisting of two spacecraft, the
Pioneer Venus Orbiter and the
Pioneer Venus Multiprobe. It would be to Venus what the Viking project was to Mars. The large orbiter (total mass of 517kg) was launched on May 20th 1978 on an Atlas-Centaur rocket. The multiprobe was also launched on an Atlas-Centaur, on August 8th, 1978. The multiprobe constisted of one large (315kg) probe and three small atmospheric probes. All four probes would enter the Venusian atmosphere on December 9th. The multiprobe would stop functioning soon after, but did discover that argon concentrations were very high in Venus' atmosphere compared to Earth's. The orbiter would remain active until the early 1990s.
The Soviet space probe programme was focused solely on Venus and Mars, and struggled with ongoing reliability issues. The early "Marsnik" (as they were dubbed by the Western press) probes were small and launched on
Molniya rockets. Starting with two failures in 1969, the heavier Proton-K rocket was used to launch larger, 5 tonne spacecraft, consisting of orbiter and lander. Missions
Mars 2 and
3 (in line with Soviet practice, only successful launch attempts were given numeric designation to give the impression of an inflated success rate) became the first spacecraft to reach the surface of the red planet. The
Mars 2 orbiter's primary objectives was to image Martian surface and clouds, determine the temperature on Mars, study the topography, composition and physical properties of the surface, measure properties of the atmosphere, monitor the solar wind and the interplanetary and Martian magnetic fields. A massive Martian dust storm adversely affected the mission, obscuring the surface. Both
Mars 2 and
3 would end up dispatching landers almost immediately. The lander descent system malfunctioned and it crashed into Mars, becoming the first man-made object to impact the Martian surface.
Mars 3 managed to transmit more useful images than
Mars 2, revealing mountains as high as 22km, also detected atomic hydrogen and oxygen in the upper atmosphere and detecting surface temperatures ranging from -110 degrees celsius to 13 degrees C. Unlike the
Mars 2 lander, which crashed,
Mars 3's lander achieved a soft landing, but failed after only 110 seconds on the Martian surface.
Mars 4 intended to enter orbit around Mars in 1974, but computer problems prevented orbital insertion from occurring and turning the mission into an improvised flyby. 12 photographs were taken and transmitted back to Earth.
Mars 5 successfully entered areocentric orbit, but damage caused by micrometeoroid impacts limited its lifespan.
Mars 6 lost contact with Earth after 224 seconds in the Martian atmosphere and
Mars 7 missed Mars due to a malfunction.
Alongside the Mars programme, the Soviets also pursued the Venera Project ("Venera" meaning Venus in Russian). The first Soviet attempt at a flyby probe to Venus was launched on 4th February 1961, but failed to leavt Earth orbit. This attempt was designated
Venera 1VA.
Venera 1 was launched on 12th February 1961. Telemetry on the probe failed seven days after launch.
Venera 2 launched on 12th November 1965, but also suffered a telemetry failure after leaving Earth orbit. Several other failed attempts at Venus flyby probes were launched by the USSR in the early 1960s, but didn't receive the "Venera" designation.
Venera 3 became the first human-made object to impact another planet's surface when it crash-landed on 1st March 1966. However, as the data probes failed upon atmospheric penetration, no data from within the Venusian atmosphere was retrieved from the mission. On 18th October 1967,
Venera 4 became the first spacecraft to measure the atmosphere of another planet. This revealed the major gas of Venus' atmosphere as carbon dioxide. Surface pressure was much too high for the probe to survive long. Adapting to the challenge of high surface pressure on Venus, the Soviets launched
Veneras 5 &
6 as atmospheric probes. Designed to jettison nearly half their payload prior to entering the atmosphere and were able to transmit for almost an hour.
Venera 7 was launched in August 1970, the first to survive Venus' surface conditions and make a soft landing. Massively overbuilt to ensure survivability, it had few experiments and scientific output was further limited by a switchboard error keeping it stuck in the "transmit temperature" position. Control scientists were able to extrapolate the pressure on the Venusian surface from the temperature data from the first surface measurements (465 degrees celsius).
Venera 8, launched in 1972, was equipped with an extended set of scientific instruments for studying the surface. Transmitted data for an hour prior to failing. The 1975
Venera 9 and
10 and 1978
Venera 11 and
12 were designed to take images of Venus' surface. The lens caps on
Venera 11 and
12 failed to release.
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[242] Historically, the Apollo Applications Programme. As noted in the last update, the Apollo programme is not pursued and the American Moon landing is achieved through the Advanced Gemini programme.
[243] IOTL, President Nixon
[244] IOTL, the relative underfunding was due to President Johnson's decisions to focus spending on his "Great Society" policies instead of on these aerospace programmes. ITTL, with Jackson rising to the presidency in 1968, he opens the floodgates spending-wise.