06-07-2019, 12:21 PM
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Master Modeler
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Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Fairbanks, Alaska
Posts: 6,507
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BigRIJoe
Well, Blackshire why not model the Atlas Agena D that launched mariner 3? You can always tell everyone that under the un-jettisoned shroud, sits Mariner 3!
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While no one will ever be sure until someone goes out to examine the Agena D/Mariner 3 vehicle in solar orbit, there were indications that the Agena's "clamshell-split," cone-cylinder fiberglass payload fairing--not just its inner liner--might have collapsed and/or been significantly deformed by the dynamic pressure during ascent through the atmosphere. The fairing--or at least part of it (perhaps one half) definitely failed to jettison, because its extra mass prevented the Agena's Earth escape burn from injecting itself and Mariner 3 into a Mars encounter trajectory; its solar orbit was/is considerably "lower" than Mars' orbit, and:
If that happened with the fairing, an Atlas-Agena D/Mariner 3 model would look pretty "buggered-up," and would--not having a guidance system--probably fly as "well" as it looked. (Some years ago, I saw comments elsewhere online that a Mariner 3 and Mariner 4 "comparative space hardware archaeology" expedition would provide interesting and useful engineering data on how two identical spacecraft--one fully exposed to the space environment [Mariner 4] and one at least partially shielded from it [Mariner 3, still folded up "atop" its Agena D, under a wrecked full or partial payload fairing]--had been affected by the conditions in interplanetary space, including the unfiltered sunlight.)
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