soviet Mercury mission ?

Hi, i'd like some information please...
Someone told me about a supposed unmanned soviet mission to Mercury
launched around late spring-early summer 1973. He said there was even
a Mercury impact (i think there might also have been an intended soft
landing). Apparently it was part of a series of test in preparation
for a then-in-planing human Mars mission, which is why it wasn't
publicly revealed.

As far as i can tell the spacecraft was supposed to be built by
TsNIIMash (1 of 3 of its kind, one being Cosmos 419, and one
apparently still in Moscow) and somewhat similar to the Mars 2 & 3,
and was launch on a 4 stage Proton.
I'm skeptical of all of this because he was very vague & evasive in
his information (he claims it's 3rd party from russians he works with,
so that would be his "reason").
And i'd think a planetary mission like this would be hard to conceal,
and that the soviet wouldn't have missed the publicity of getting to
Mercury first, even if they hid the more embarassing crash part. I
mean why would the whole mission a secret rather then just the
experiments carried out like in other missions around the same time ?
It dosen't compute.
But still i'm trying to investigate this since the guy does claim to
be currently working in the space industry.

Does anyone know ANYTHING about this ? Or can point me to any
information for or against such a thing at that time.
Beause the Mercury year is short, and his launch date so vague, it was
hard to determine if that was a good launch period for a transfer
orbit.
Also, did a proton back in '73 have enough thrust to send a 2t+
spacecraft to Mercury orbit without gravity assist ? I did a few
calculations on current ProtonK+BlockDM from some specs i found on
google and the deltav seems just high enough, although i was a bit
surprised (seeing that Mariner 10 was so much lighter and it used
gravity assist).

Anyway, i'm just an amateur so i'd be greatful for any kind of
enlightment on the subject.

Thanks

Hex wrote:

Hi, i'd like some information please...
Someone told me about a supposed unmanned soviet mission to Mercury
launched around late spring-early summer 1973. He said there was even
a Mercury impact (i think there might also have been an intended soft
landing). Apparently it was part of a series of test in preparation
for a then-in-planing human Mars mission, which is why it wasn't
publicly revealed.

Although we might miss a launch failure ( we missed the first N-1
launch attempt) I don't think we have missed a probe once it was in
orbit, especially if it was sent on a interplanetary trajectory. It
would be sending some sort of radio signals out; and those would stick
out like a sore thumb given its trajectory toward Mercury


As far as i can tell the spacecraft was supposed to be built by
TsNIIMash (1 of 3 of its kind, one being Cosmos 419, and one
apparently still in Moscow) and somewhat similar to the Mars 2 & 3,
and was launch on a 4 stage Proton.

If it's a lander it would tend to resemble the lunar landers more than
the Mars ones; they used parachutes as part of their braking system, and
that obviously wouldn't work in regards to Mercury.



Does anyone know ANYTHING about this ? Or can point me to any
information for or against such a thing at that time.
Beause the Mercury year is short, and his launch date so vague, it was
hard to determine if that was a good launch period for a transfer
orbit.

Mark Wade's launch chronology would be a good place to start-
Here's the part that refers to the timeframe you mentioned:
http://www.astronautix.com/chrono/19731.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/chrono/19732.htm
The only Proton launches I see in that timeframe are Salyut 2 (Almaz-1)
on April 3rd,
Cosmos 557 (would have been Salyut 2a or 4(?); went out of control in
orbit) May 11th, and Mars 4 and 5 on July 21 and 25th respectively. This
sounds like something related to Cosmos 557 if any of the above; but
that one was a Salyut- either a replacement Salyut 2, or Salyut 4,
depending what you read.
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/salyut4.htm
http://www.ninfinger.org/~sven/model...mos%20557.html

Pat

Pat Flannery wrote in message ...
Hex wrote:

Hi, i'd like some information please...
Someone told me about a supposed unmanned soviet mission to Mercury
launched around late spring-early summer 1973.

Snip

If it's a lander it would tend to resemble the lunar landers more than
the Mars ones; they used parachutes as part of their braking system, and
that obviously wouldn't work in regards to Mercury.

Agreed, a bigger and better Luna 16 or 17.

Does anyone know ANYTHING about this ?
Mark Wade's launch chronology would be a good place to start

Yes.

Here's the part that refers to the timeframe you mentioned:
http://www.astronautix.com/chrono/19731.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/chrono/19732.htm

Thanks, that's a new one to me, will be bookmarked.

Snip

This
sounds like something related to Cosmos 557 if any of the above; but
that one was a Salyut- either a replacement Salyut 2,

Also see Sven Grahn's page about any manned Soviet program (or chinese
for that matter)

http://www.svengrahn.pp.se/trackind/salyut3/salyut3.htm

Regards

Carsten Nielsen
Denmark