Lesson 4 of 4 · Phobos
Phobos: keep scientific returns and unfinished goals visible
8 minute lesson · 3 checks along the way
Your goal for this lessonDistinguish the 1988 Phobos program’s planned close operations from its achieved observations.
In this lesson 3 sections · 3 checks
Using archive links & definitions
Follow a linked name to explore its archive card. “Back to your lesson” brings you to the same part of the reading.
Words with a dotted underline open a short definition right here in the lesson.
Read & understand
Mars, its moon and the space around them
The Soviet-led international Phobos project launched two spacecraft in July 1988. Its scientific scope included Mars, the moon Phobos, the Sun and interplanetary space. Lavochkin’s spacecraft design carried remote-sensing and particle instruments, with contributions from scientific institutions in several countries. Two broadly related spacecraft offered additional observing opportunities, but they were not identical in every payload detail.
The planned encounter with Phobos was especially ambitious. It called for close observations and the delivery of small surface probes, including a stationary package and a mobile probe. These were intended operations, not completed landings. The project should also be distinguished from the separate Phobos-Grunt sample-return attempt launched in 2011.
Check 1 of 3
10 pointsUse the reading above. You can try again without losing points.
Read & understand
Two spacecraft, different stopping points
Contact with Phobos 1 was lost during the 1988 journey. Phobos 2 entered Mars orbit in January 1989 and returned observations before communication ended in March. It did not complete the planned final close approach and surface-probe deployment. Losing the spacecraft left important objectives unfinished even though the mission had already produced data.
The returned observations included information about Phobos’s thermal properties and the plasma environment around Mars. Instrument teams could analyze how the solar wind interacted with the planet’s surroundings. Those results should be identified by the working instrument and observing interval rather than expanded into a claim that the entire proposed mission was accomplished.
Phobos appears in a color-enhanced HiRISE observation from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on March 23, 2008. The image combines blue-green, red and near-infrared channels. It supplies later context for the Soviet probes’ target, not imagery from Phobos 1 or 2 or a deployed surface package.
Look closely
Which claim would confuse the target with the observing spacecraft?
See what to notice
Calling this a photograph from a Soviet Phobos lander would invent an operation that did not occur. Its actual source is MRO’s HiRISE camera in 2008.
Check 2 of 3
10 pointsUse the reading above. You can try again without losing points.
Read & understand
Interpret pictures and program names carefully
The Phobos photograph beside this lesson was taken by the Mars Reconnaissance ’s HiRISE camera in 2008. It supplies later context for the moon’s irregular shape and cratered surface. It is not a Phobos 2 image, a picture from a landed Soviet probe or proof that the planned surface experiment took place.
A useful program account has room for both returned science and missing capabilities. Compare remote thermal or particle measurements with the different evidence a surface instrument might have supplied. Then trace later research as a continuation of scientific questions, without treating a shared target name as proof of an unchanged spacecraft, program or successful landing.
Check 3 of 3
10 pointsUse the reading above. You can try again without losing points.
Put it together
Your lesson progress
Each check connects to a part of the story. Complete all 3 to earn your 25-point lesson bonus.
Explore further · Optional
Go to the source
Explore the evidence behind this lesson. These optional readings and videos open in a new tab.
- Read: Lavochkin: Phobos 1 and 2 objectives and hardwareThe low reference-orbit dimensions in the summary describe an Earth parking orbit, not the Mars science orbit.
- Read: Lavochkin: Phobos 2’s arrival at Mars and scientific resultsRussian-language manufacturer history of the 1989 mission.
- Read: IKI: planetary exploration history and the Phobos missionHistorical Russian-language account; distinguish the 1988 Phobos probes from the later Phobos-Grunt sample-return project.
- Read: IKI: instruments studying interplanetary and planetary plasmaCompare the explanation and its assumptions with the worked example in this lesson.
- Read: NASA: Beyond Earth, a chronology of planetary explorationUse the individual historical mission entries rather than interpreting launch dates as arrival dates.