Word: retrorockets
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...easy. The 1,300-lb. spacecraft will slam into the planet's atmosphere at 16,300 m.p.h., ultimately causing it to experience deceleration forces of 20 Gs. The vehicle's cork-and-silicon aeroshell should absorb most of this body blow. Both a parachute and a retrorocket will slow its plunge, and an array of airbags will inflate to cushion the shock of landing. And finally, the spacecraft will simply drop to the surface, striking the ground like a beach ball and rolling to a stop in the ancient floodplain...
...journey to Venus. This flight path will lessen the accelerating effect on Pioneer of the sun's gravity. As a result, the ship will make its approach to the planet at a lower speed than if it had taken a more direct route across space. Thus a smaller retrorocket will be needed to slow Pioneer down to the speed necessary for it to slip into its orbit around Venus...
...During the last manned mission, in June 1971, three cosmonauts lived in Salyut 1 for almost 24 days-longer than anyone had previously spent in space. But the three crewmen were killed on their way back to earth; the hatch of their Soyuz spacecraft leaked-perhaps jolted by the retrorocket firing prior to re-entry-resulting in a fatal loss of oxygen. Since then Soviet engineers have redesigned the hatch to prevent a recurrence of the tragedy. As an added precaution, the cosmonauts will also wear their pressure suits on the return flight, something the earlier crew had not done...
...shield (not shown) was jettisoned, a small parachute was released, retarding the capsule's descent slightly in the thin Martian atmosphere. Then the larger main chute was unfurled from a ring-shaped container under the lander's spherical body. Finally, a burst from the ship's retrorocket provided additional crucial braking for the landing. After only 20 seconds on the surface, however, the lander's TV camera stopped sending signals. Soviet scientists speculated that either the ship sank so deep into Martian dust that it was almost buried or the high winds of the current Martian...
After a voyage of more than five months and 248 million miles, the first of a trio of terrestrial ships made its rendezvous with Mars late last week. Precisely on schedule, the 1,300-lb. U.S. Mariner 9 fired its retrorocket and went into a looping orbit around the red planet, swinging as close as 800 miles to the Martian surface. With that successful maneuver, controlled entirely by its onboard computer, the $76.8 million windmill-shaped robot became the first man-made satellite of another planet. As pictures of the dust-obscured Martian surface began reaching earth, delighted mission controllers...