Mars Landers (was: Pope given word...)

In article ,
Corbell5571 wrote:

[trimming followups, and diverting to ssh]

I'm just playing with words, but serious it does start to look funny
if we can't seem to land on Mars. We did once way back when or was it
twice?

Three times, actually - four if you count a Soviet probe that fell
silent about 20 seconds after landing.

People do tend to conflate the two Viking landers. WRT the Mars 3
lander, there seems to be some debate - I've seen claims that the
transmission was faked so the USSR could claim first landing. Jim?

Plus six (I think) successful
orbiters. That's out of 35 or so attempts. MOST Mars missions had
failed in the past.

Mars Odyssey, Mars Global Surveyor, Viking 1 & 2, Mariner 8. Five.

But every recent mission has flopped all pretty much during an
attempted landing.

The most recent flop prior to Beagle 2 was Nozomi. It failed to enter
Mars orbit.

Prior to that, there was the Mars Polar Lander failure - which people
remember - and the Mars Climate Orbiter failure, which may well have
involved actually landing unintentionally ;-)

People often forget Mars Odyssey, too, which came after MPL/MCO but
never got as much press; it's still functioning excellently.

--
-Andrew Gray

Andrew Gray wrote:

Mars Odyssey, Mars Global Surveyor, Viking 1 & 2, Mariner 8. Five.

I believe you meant Mariner 9 since Mariner 8 was lost during launch.

--


Alex R. Blackwell
University of Hawaii

"Andrew Gray" wrote in message
. ..
In article ,
Corbell5571 wrote:

Plus six (I think) successful
orbiters. That's out of 35 or so attempts. MOST Mars missions had
failed in the past.

Mars Odyssey, Mars Global Surveyor, Viking 1 & 2, Mariner 8. Five.

Plus three Soviet orbiters which were produced data: Mars 5 in 1971 -
several months - another couple of years later
and Phobos 2 in 1989.

In article , Alex R.
Blackwell wrote:
Andrew Gray wrote:

Mars Odyssey, Mars Global Surveyor, Viking 1 & 2, Mariner 8. Five.

I believe you meant Mariner 9 since Mariner 8 was lost during launch.

If I wasn't so tired, I'd put a reply here saying how that mistake
somehow showed the excellent results of flying identical-pair probes.
But as I am, I invite you all to imagine there was a wittily incisive
remark here that didn't managed to get a one-digit number *printed on a
page in front of the author* wrong. Gah... ;-)

--
-Andrew Gray

In sci.space.policy Andrew Gray wrote:
People do tend to conflate the two Viking landers. WRT the Mars 3
lander, there seems to be some debate - I've seen claims that the
transmission was faked so the USSR could claim first landing. Jim?

Would that be a precedent?


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In article , Brian Sandle wrote:
In sci.space.policy Andrew Gray wrote:
People do tend to conflate the two Viking landers. WRT the Mars 3
lander, there seems to be some debate - I've seen claims that the
transmission was faked so the USSR could claim first landing. Jim?

Would that be a precedent?

If you're asking what I think you're asking, Mars 3 managed to do very
little of any real use in 1971...

(I don't think they did make an unsubstantiated claim - they'd have done
it more creatively, if they did - I was just wanting to know what the
resident expert had heard muttered on the issue...)

--
-Andrew Gray

Andrew Gray wrote:
In article , Brian Sandle wrote:
In sci.space.policy Andrew Gray wrote:
People do tend to conflate the two Viking landers. WRT the Mars 3
lander, there seems to be some debate - I've seen claims that the
transmission was faked so the USSR could claim first landing. Jim?

Would that be a precedent?

If you're asking what I think you're asking, Mars 3 managed to do very
little of any real use in 1971...

(I don't think they did make an unsubstantiated claim - they'd have done
it more creatively, if they did - I was just wanting to know what the
resident expert had heard muttered on the issue...)

Who would claim a fake and why would they claim a fake? It might seem that
fake claims are part of the free-for-all accepted by the side which was
`fake' this time. Or is it, `We would never fake anything for prowess, but
we know you would.'?


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Andrew Gray wrote in message ...
Plus six (I think) successful
orbiters. That's out of 35 or so attempts. MOST Mars missions had
failed in the past.

Mars Odyssey, Mars Global Surveyor, Viking 1 & 2, Mariner 8. Five.

Ahem, plus the Soviet orbiters, maybe. Plus Mars *Express*,
*ahem*, *ahem*.

(and that's Mariner 9, but you already know that.)