Kosmos 419 (russian: Космос 419 meaning ''Cosmos 419''), also known as 3MS No.170 was a failed

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

spacecraft intended to visit

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin at ...

. The spacecraft was launched on 10 May 1971, however due to an upper stage malfunction it failed to depart low Earth orbit.

Background

In 1971, Mars was at its closest to Earth since 1956 and in May of that year both the Soviet Union and the United States made new attempts to reach the Red Planet. Kosmos 419 was intended to overtake the United States probes,

Mariner 8 Mariner-H (Mariner Mars '71), also commonly known as Mariner 8, was (along with Mariner 9) part of the Mariner Mars '71 project. It was intended to go into Mars orbit and return images and data, but a launch vehicle failure prevented Mariner 8 ...

and Mariner 9, in the aim of becoming the first Mars orbiter. As it was, Mariner 8 was lost in a launch failure two days before Kosmos 419 was launched, and Mariner 9 went on to become the first spacecraft to orbit Mars.

Launch

Kosmos 419 was one of three ''

'' spacecraft launched by the Soviet Union in 1971, the others being

Mars 2 The Mars 2 was an uncrewed space probe of the Mars program, a series of uncrewed Mars landers and orbiters launched by the Soviet Union beginning 19 May 1971. The Mars 2 and Mars 3 missions consisted of identical spacecraft, each with an orbi ...

and

Mars 3 Mars 3 was a robotic space probe of the Soviet Mars program, launched May 28, 1971, nine days after its twin spacecraft Mars 2. The probes were identical robotic spacecraft launched by Proton-K rockets with a Blok D upper stage, each consist ...

; launched days after Kosmos 419. Unlike the 4M spacecraft, Mars 2 and 3, Kosmos 419 was a 3MS spacecraft which consisted only of an orbiter, with no lander. It was the ninth Soviet spacecraft launched to Mars.

Orbit

A Proton-K carrier rocket successfully put the spacecraft and a Blok D upper stage into a low earth

parking orbit A parking orbit is a temporary orbit used during the launch of a spacecraft. A launch vehicle boosts into the parking orbit, then coasts for a while, then fires again to enter the final desired trajectory. The alternative to a parking orbit is ''di ...

with an

apogee An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. For example, the apsides of the Earth are called the aphelion and perihelion. General description There are two apsides in any ell ...

of and a

perigee An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. For example, the apsides of the Earth are called the aphelion and perihelion. General description There are two apsides in any ell ...

of and an

inclination Orbital inclination measures the tilt of an object's orbit around a celestial body. It is expressed as the angle between a reference plane and the orbital plane or axis of direction of the orbiting object. For a satellite orbiting the Eart ...

of 51.4 degrees. The Blok D's ignition timer was incorrectly set, resulting in it failing to ignite; the timer had been set so that the stage would ignite 1.5 years after launch rather than the intended 1.5 hours. Due to its low orbit, which quickly decayed, Kosmos 419 reentered the Earth's atmosphere on 12 May 1971, two days after launch. The designation Kosmos 419 was a generic name given to Soviet spacecraft operating in Earth orbit; at the time Soviet planetary spacecraft which failed to depart Earth orbit would be given designations in the Kosmos series to disguise the failure. Had it departed Earth orbit, Kosmos 419 would have become Mars 2, a designation which was used instead for the next mission, 4M No.171.

Scientific Instruments

# Fluxgate Magnetometer # Infrared Radiometer # Infrared Photometer # Spectrometer # Photometer # Radiometer # Ultraviolet Photometer # Cosmic-ray detector # Charged particle spectrometer # Imaging System # Stereo antenna

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kosmos 0419 1971 in the Soviet Union Spacecraft launched in 1971 Mars program Kosmos 0419 4MV

Background

Launch

Orbit

Scientific Instruments

See also

References