Sojourner-1 mission

This article is about the 1994 NASA mission to Mars. For the spacecraft, see Sojourner. For other uses, see Sojourner (disambiguation).

Sojourner-1 mission
General Information
Operator
Spacecraft	Sojourner 1
Launch site	Jamestown, Moon
Landing site	Melas Chasma, Mars
Mission Details
Alias	Mars '94 mission (not to be confused with Mars-94)
Purpose	Land the first humans on Mars Establish a continuous human presence on Mars
Crew	NASA: Danielle Poole Kelly Baldwin Will Tyler Rolan Baranov Clarke Halladay † Sylvie Kaplan † Roscosmos (later): Grigory Kuznetsov Dimitri Mayakovsky Alexei Poletov † Isabel Castillo †
Start date	October 1994
End date	~ 1996 (planned)
Duration	~ 2 years (planned)
Result	Danielle Poole and Grigory Kuznetsov seemingly become the first humans to walk on Mars Clarke Halladay and Sylvie Kaplan killed during the rescue of Mars-94 Isabel Castillo, Alexei Poletov, and Helios astronaut Nick Corrado killed from a landslide Kelly Baldwin and her unborn child successfully rescued Sojourner 1 abandoned on Mars
Mission Patch

Sojourner-1 was the first NASA mission to land humans on Mars. The mission started in fall 1994.

History

Planning & launch

After over a decade of planning and preparations, the Sojourner-1 mission was supposed to start during the launch window of 1996. However, when Dev Ayesa, CEO of Helios Aerospace, announced their participation in the race to Mars during a presentation of their spacecraft Phoenix in 1992, and also set their aimed launch date to 1994, NASA was forced to move up their plans to not be left behind. Procedures like testing their NERVA had to be sped up, and the support mission planned for 1994 had to be completely reorganized, launching it one year earlier outside the usual windows but towards Venus to gain speed using a swing-by maneuver.

Sojourner 1 finally launched successfully from its construction site on the Moon in fall 1994, within 2 weeks of the other competitors, the Roscosmos spacecraft Mars-94 and Helios' Phoenix.

Journey to Mars

Soon after launch and after completing their trans-Mars injection burn (TMI), Sojourner deployed its giant solar sails, which had been secretly developed under the code name Operation Jolly Roger. Due to the slow but permanent acceleration through these sails, they gained advantage that would ultimately bring them to the red planet first.

Rescue mission

Main article: Rescue of Mars-94

When the Soviet Mars-94 spacecraft tried to match up with Sojourner, they pushed their engines beyond its limits what sent them into meltdown. Sojourner was forced to detour in order to rescue the cosmonauts, in spite of this preventing them from reaching Mars. The American craft connected to Mars-94 via a tether, which the cosmonauts would cross by hand. However, one of Mars-94's liquid hydrogen tanks exploded, causing the ship to roll onto the Sojourner, damaging it and killing Sylvie Kaplan and Clarke Halladay, both being outside the spacecraft during the rescue, along with cosmonaut Oleg Sidorov, who was attempting to cross the tether.

Sojourner survived however, and was able to refuel using Mars-94. The remaining crews continued towards Mars on the damaged craft in what now had become a joint American-Soviet mission.

Landing on Mars

Due to dust storms on the surface, the Helios crew were unable to attempt landing until Sojourner also arrived in Martian orbit. A landing attempt was made using the Helios MSAM Popeye but was aborted by Edward Baldwin due to low visibility and high descent rate. Subsequently, Sojourner-1 seemingly became the first manned spacecraft to reach the Martian surface, although the engines became too damaged for the craft to ever leave again. Commander Danielle Poole and Soviet commander Grigory Kuznetsov were in brief conflict over who ultimately became the seemingly first human to step foot on Mars, with both leaving together during the fight, making it a joint American and Soviet achievement.

Mission on Mars

Main article: Happy Valley (1995)

End of life

Months later, Sojourner 1 was once again visited to rescue the Propulsive Mobility Unit (PMU) and its backup tanks to create a second stage out of it for the mission to bring pregnant Kelly Baldwin to Phoenix.

The ship was then abandoned on Mars, and later became a landmark for new arriving astronauts.

Crew

• Initial crew:
  • Danielle Poole (Mission commander)
  • Sylvie Kaplan †
  • Kelly Baldwin
  • Will Tyler
  • Rolan Baranov
  • Clarke Halladay †
• Mars-94 crew:
  • Grigory Kuznetsov (Roscosmos commander)
  • Dimitri Mayakovsky
  • Alexei Poletov †
  • Isabel Castillo †

Gallery

Sojourner 1 at the launch point at the Jamestown base in 1994

Take-off & Trans-Mars injection

Sojourner with its solar sails deployed

Sojourner-1 and Mars-94 connected for the rescue mission

Mars-94 colliding with Sojourner-1

Approaching Mars

The joint crew during landing

Damaged thrusters after landing

First steps on Mars

Walking to the supply landers

Assembling the NASA base

Happy Valley base

See also

• Helios Mars mission
• Sojourner (spaceship)
• Mars-94
• Race to Mars