Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, August 24, 1993 TAG: 9308240068
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: PASADENA, CALIF. LENGTH: Medium
NASA engineers worked Monday to restore contact with Mars Observer and prevent it from joining the list.
Until Mars Observer was launched last year, the last time anyone tried sending spacecraft to Mars was in 1988, when the former Soviet Union launched twin Phobos probes.
The Soviets lost contact with Phobos 1 en route to Mars due to a ground-control error. Phobos 2 stopped transmitting in 1989, before it was able to place sensors on the Martian moon Phobos.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration launched six Mariner spacecraft toward Mars from 1964 to 1971. Four made it. Controllers lost touch with Mariner 3 when a shroud failed to separate after launch in 1964. A second-stage rocket failure dumped Mariner 8 into the Atlantic in 1971.
NASA's twin Viking orbiters and their landing craft were wildly successful, taking pictures and scooping up soil samples after they reached Mars in 1976. The last Viking fell silent in 1982.
Before its breakup, the Soviet Union tried to launch at least 15 and possibly 17 spacecraft toward Mars from 1960 to 1988.
"All their missions failed completely or partly," said Bruce Murray, a California Institute of Technology scientist and former director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Two unnamed Soviet Mars craft failed to reach orbit in 1960.
Sputnik 22 exploded above Earth in 1962. The same year, Soviet controllers lost contact with Mars 1, and Sputnik 24 was destroyed during a failed attempt to hurl it out of Earth orbit toward Mars.
They lost touch with Zond 2 en route to Mars in 1965.
by CNB