Mars Piloted Orbital Station (or Marspost) is a Russian concept for an orbital human mission to Mars, with several proposed configurations, including using a nuclear reactor to run an electric rocket engine. A 30-volume draft proposal was produced in 2005.[ citation needed ] The design for the proposed ship was proposed to be ready in 2012, and the ship itself in 2021. [1] The concept did not undergo detailed design nor development.
Marpost would be launched to Mars together with a fleet of robotic spacecraft designed to study the planet both from its orbit and on its surface, while the crew would remain in Mars orbit. The station would reach Mars orbit from where its crew would research Mars by operating the robots; for this reason the mission is called a 'hybrid'.
Since the robots would be controlled by Marpost crewmembers from Martian orbit it would eliminate one of the basic problems of robotic Mars missions, the 4 to 24 minute delay for radio signals to reach the Earth. [2] Samples of Martian soil would then be delivered by these robots to Marpost and later brought back to Earth. The whole duration of the flight would be 2.5 years with one month of work in Mars orbit. The mission would also investigate if people can survive a lengthy trip through deep space and effectively perform their tasks.
The idea of this 'hybrid' mission was first advanced by Yuri Karash. His article was published in the Russian Nezavisimaya Gazeta on October 18, 2000 under the title Vperyod, Na Mars! Rossii sleduyet vzyat kurs na sozdaniye marsianskoi pilotiruemoy orbitalnoy stantsii [Onward, to Mars! Russia needs to set a course toward the development of a Martian Piloted Orbital Station]. Karash claimed that Russia, while continuing its participation in the International Space Station program, should build the rest of Russian modules for the station but instead of attaching them to the ISS, assemble them in orbit as an autonomous complex and launch it to Mars with a crew on board. He also gave this space complex its name Marspost.
Further concepts see Marpost to pave the way for a joint Russian-American mission to the Martian surface. Russia, capitalizing on its extensive experience in building and operating long-term orbital space stations, would build a trans-planetary spacecraft while America, capitalizing on its experience gained during the Apollo Moon landing program, would build a Mars landing module.[ citation needed ]
The idea of Marpost was then picked up by Leonid Gorshkov, one of the main designers of the RKK Energia (Raketno-Kosmicheskaya Korporatsiya – Rocket-Space Corporation) company, the leading Russian space developer and builder of human spaceflight hardware. [3] Gorshkov proposed to use the space complex called MEK (Mezhplanetniy Ekspeditsioniy Komplex, or Interplanetary Expeditionary Complex), that was already developed and designed by RKK Energia. The projected cost would be $14–16 billion and the period of realization would be 12–14 years. The elements of MEK were initially proposed to be launched by the Energia heavy booster. Later however, in order to lower the cost of the mission, the elements of MEK were proposed to be launched by a Proton or Angara rocket. The overall mass of MEK is estimated at 400 tons. The flight from Earth orbit to Mars would be powered by ion thruster engines. [4]
Mars Direct is a proposal for a human mission to Mars which purports to be both cost-effective and possible with current technology. It was originally detailed in a research paper by Martin Marietta engineers Robert Zubrin and David Baker in 1990, and later expanded upon in Zubrin's 1996 book The Case for Mars. It now serves as a staple of Zubrin's speaking engagements and general advocacy as head of the Mars Society, an organization devoted to the colonization of Mars.
PAO S. P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia, also known as RSC Energia, is a Russian manufacturer of spacecraft and space station components. The company is the prime developer and contractor of the Russian crewed spaceflight program; it also owns a majority of Sea Launch. Its name is derived from Sergei Korolev, the first chief of its design bureau, and the Russian word for energy.
A spaceport or cosmodrome is a site for launching or receiving spacecraft, by analogy to a seaport for ships or an airport for aircraft. The word spaceport, and even more so cosmodrome, has traditionally been used for sites capable of launching spacecraft into orbit around Earth or on interplanetary trajectories. However, rocket launch sites for purely sub-orbital flights are sometimes called spaceports, as in recent years new and proposed sites for suborbital human flights have been frequently referred to or named "spaceports". Space stations and proposed future bases on the Moon are sometimes called spaceports, in particular if intended as a base for further journeys.
Human spaceflight programs have been conducted, started, or planned by multiple countries and companies. Until the 21st century, human spaceflight programs were sponsored exclusively by governments, through either the military or civilian space agencies. With the launch of the privately funded SpaceShipOne in 2004, a new category of human spaceflight programs – commercial human spaceflight – arrived. By the end of 2022, three countries and one private company (SpaceX) had successfully launched humans to Earth orbit, and two private companies had launched humans on a suborbital trajectory.
The planet Mars has been explored remotely by spacecraft. Probes sent from Earth, beginning in the late 20th century, have yielded a large increase in knowledge about the Martian system, focused primarily on understanding its geology and habitability potential. Engineering interplanetary journeys is complicated and the exploration of Mars has experienced a high failure rate, especially the early attempts. Roughly sixty percent of all spacecraft destined for Mars failed before completing their missions, with some failing before their observations could even begin. Some missions have been met with unexpected success, such as the twin Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, which operated for years beyond their specification.
Mars 96 was a failed Mars mission launched in 1996 to investigate Mars by the Russian Space Forces and not directly related to the Soviet Mars probe program of the same name. After failure of the second fourth-stage burn, the probe assembly re-entered the Earth's atmosphere, breaking up over a 320 km (200 mi) long portion of the Pacific Ocean, Chile, and Bolivia. The Mars 96 spacecraft was based on the Phobos probes launched to Mars in 1988. They were of a new design at the time and both ultimately failed. For the Mars 96 mission the designers believed they had corrected the flaws of the Phobos probes, but the value of their improvements was never demonstrated due to the destruction of the probe during the launch phase.
Kliper was an early-2000s proposed partially-reusable crewed spacecraft concept by RSC Energia. Due to lack of funding from the ESA and RSA, the project was indefinitely postponed by 2006.
TMK was the designation of a Soviet space exploration project to send a crewed flight to Mars and Venus without landing.
The Parom is a space tug that has been proposed by RKK Energia. The purpose of this vehicle is to replace most of the Progress' active components. Progress spacecraft have flown re-supply missions since 1978. Nikolai Bryukhanov, RKK Energia's deputy general designer, said in May 2005 that the Federal Space Agency had received a design for a new space system. According to him, the system's operation principle is completely different from that used by Progress. A launch vehicle first places a Parom reusable inter-orbit "tug" into a 200 km orbit. As this spacecraft will not carry any consignments, other rockets will orbit payload containers that will be docked by Parom. The tug will then deliver them to the ISS or another orbiter.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to space exploration.
The idea of sending humans to Mars has been the subject of aerospace engineering and scientific studies since the late 1940s as part of the broader exploration of Mars. Long-term proposals have included sending settlers and terraforming the planet. Proposals for human missions to Mars have come from agencies such as NASA, CNSA, the European Space Agency, Boeing, and SpaceX. Currently, only robotic landers and rovers have been on Mars. The farthest humans have been beyond Earth is the Moon, under the Apollo program.
Orel or Oryol, formerly Federation, and PPPTS, is a project by Roscosmos to develop a new-generation, partially reusable crewed spacecraft.
Progress M1-5 was the Progress spacecraft which was launched by Russia in 2001 to deorbit the fifteen-year-old Mir space station in a controlled fashion over a remote ocean area, far away from shipping lanes - otherwise Mir's orbit would have decayed uncontrolled over time, with debris potentially landing in a populated area. The Russian Aviation and Space Agency, Rosaviakosmos, was responsible for the mission.
The Orbital Piloted Assembly and Experiment Complex was a 2009–2017 proposed third-generation Russian modular space station for low Earth orbit. The concept was to use OPSEK to assemble components of crewed interplanetary spacecraft destined for the Moon, Mars, and possibly Saturn. The returning crew could also recover on the station before landing on Earth. Thus, OPSEK could form part of a future network of stations supporting crewed exploration of the Solar System.
Space architecture is the theory and practice of designing and building inhabited environments in outer space. This mission statement for space architecture was developed at the World Space Congress in Houston in 2002 by members of the Technical Aerospace Architecture Subcommittee of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). The architectural approach to spacecraft design addresses the total built environment. It is mainly based on the field of engineering, but also involves diverse disciplines such as physiology, psychology, and sociology.
Prichal nodal module also known as Uzlovoy Module or UM is a Russian spacecraft which is part of the International Space Station (ISS). It was approved in 2011 and was launched on 24 November 2021, at 13:06:35 UTC, atop Progress M-UM, with operations beginning in 2022. Originally, the nodal module was intended to serve as the only permanent element of the future Orbital Piloted Assembly and Experiment Complex (OPSEK), but those plans were scrapped in 2017.
Mars-Grunt, also known as Expedition-M, is a robotic Mars sample return mission proposed to be sent to Mars in mid-2020s. It was proposed to the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) by the Russian Space Research Institute.
Progress M-16M, identified by NASA as Progress 48P, is a Progress spacecraft used by Roskosmos to resupply the International Space Station during 2012. The sixteenth Progress-M 11F615A60 spacecraft, it has the serial number 416 and was built by RKK Energia.
Soyuz MS-14 was a Soyuz spaceflight to the International Space Station. It carried no crew members, as it was intended to test a modification of the launch abort system for integration with the Soyuz-2.1a launch vehicle. It launched successfully on 22 August 2019 at 03:38 UTC. It was the first mission of the Soyuz crew vehicle without a crew in 33 years, and the first ever unpiloted mission of Soyuz to the ISS.
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