M-69 n°521

Launch Failure

Liftoff Time (GMT)

10:40:45

Thursday March 27, 1969

Mission Details

Launch Notes

The rotor of the turbopump of the RD-0212 engine of the third stage catches fire, and the engine breaks up in flight, causing the explosion of the launcher.

M-69 n°521

Wiki

The Mars M-69 probes were originally intended to consist of both an orbiter and a lander. Time constraints did not permit the development of a soft lander, so engineers decided to simply use a hard lander that would crash into the Martian surface but gather data during its descent. At first, a modified Luna Ye-8 bus was to be used for the spacecraft, however it had a number of limitations that made it unsuitable for the long journey to Mars. Halfway through the project, Lavochkin Bureau design chief Georgi Babakin decided to simply discard the Luna E-8 derived probe and design a completely new one from scratch. However, the 2M probes ended significantly heavier than intended and engineers also ran out of time to conduct drop tests of the lander, so that part was abandoned which left only the orbiter. If successful, this would still be a major propaganda success for the Soviets as NASA was nearly three years away from attempting a Mars orbiter.

Heliocentric Orbit

1 Payload

4,850 kilograms

Rocket

Retired
Proton-K/Block D

Active 1967 to 1976

Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center logo

Manufacturer

Khrunichev

Rocket

Height: 56.14m

Payload to Orbit

LEO: 18,900 kg

GTO: 9,000 kg

Liftoff Thrust

8,840 Kilonewtons

Fairing

Diameter: 3.9m

Height: 8.9m

Stages

4

Launch Site

Site 81/23

Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan

Fastest Turnaround

11 days 23 hours

Stats

Proton-K


12th

Mission

3rd

Mission of 1969

Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center


397th

Mission

23rd

Mission of 1969

1969


35th

Orbital launch attempt