prevoyvoy_v_bw_o_n (unnumbered, 1963 poss. Avco photo)
“ROBOT LABORATORY—An artist’s drawing depicts one of the concepts (spherical) considered by Avco for the capsule Voyager that would land on Mars and do everything from analyze the soil to listen for the sound of animals.”
Note the upper “INSTRUMENTATION” labeled device, a Surveyor-like camera assembly. The lower looking suspiciously vacuum cleaner attachment-like. At this time, the atmosphere of Mars was possibly thought to be thick enough to facilitate a suction induced means of sample collection.
Doesn’t it look like when one gizmo or another extended out of R2-D2?
8.25" x ~11".
From Andrew LePage’s wonderful ‘Drew ExMachina’ website:
“During the 1960s, NASA performed studies of a number of potential Mars lander concepts for their second-generation planetary missions as part of the Voyager program. Not to be confused with NASA’s outer-planet explorers of the same name launched in 1977, the earlier Voyager program was meant to perform the second phase of planetary exploration after the initial reconnaissance performed by the Mariner program’s spacecraft in the 1960s and early-1970s. This Voyager series was to consist of orbiters carrying advanced landers to explore Venus and Mars during the 1970s. This incarnation of the Voyager program was cancelled in 1967 because of its increasing expense and eventually replaced by the relatively more modest Viking program to land on Mars.”
At:
www.drewexmachina.com/2014/08/07/the-automated-biological...
And, most surprisingly, at the NTRS, an Avco ‘Voyager’ design study from 1963. However, there’s no reference to a spherical design. Excellent early information nonetheless:
ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19650025712/downloads/1965002...
Last, but not least, a pertinent & fascinating excerpt from “SP-4212, On Mars: Exploration of the Red Planet. 1958-1978”, Chapter 4, “VOYAGER: PERILS OF ADVANCED PLANNING, 1960-1967”:
“…Engineers for AVCO and GE had studied Mars and Venus missions, with AVCO giving Venus greater attention, but it was obvious to both contractors that Mars was NASA's primary target. General Electric recommended two identical landers carried aboard a single orbiter bus. Primary [95] communications from the landers to Earth would be via a relay in the orbiter, with secondary links directly from the landers. Solar cells and batteries would be used to power the orbiter, while radioisotope thermoelectric generators would provide both electricity and heat for the lander. Having concentrated basically on Mars missions, the General Electric engineers emphasized "biological and geophysical-geological experiments," recommending Syrtis Major (10°N., 285° long.) as a landing site for one lander and Pandorae Fretum (24°S, 310° long.) for the second. These were two of the more interesting areas for biological exploration. The appearance of Syrtis Major did not change much with the seasons. Its boundaries "are sharp and stable, and it is one of the darkest areas of the planet." Pandorae Fretum did change with the seasons, the dark color developing in spring, deepening with summer, and becoming light in the fall for the duration of winter. While the choice of these sites would eliminate close examination of the polar regions and the "darkening wave," they considered their choices the best ones "in view of the high priority of the life detection [experiments] and the eventual requirements for choosing sites for manned landing missions," 27 GE would wait until after the first successful landings to define future sites, but AVCO made the proposals in table 11. 28
General Electric proposed a rather ambitious series of scientific investigations, considering the weight limits on instrumentation for both the orbiter (98 kilograms) and the lander (70 kg). Biological instruments would easily constitute a third of the payload projected for the lander, AVCO Corporation's landed science payload was greater (91 kg), but the proposed orbital instrumentation was less (61 kg). In either case, the weight was substantially more than the 23 kg of experiments that could have been landed with a Mariner B-class capsule. During more favorable Mars launch opportunities-1971 and 1973-larger scientific packages could be landed using the same orbiter and launch vehicles.
Besides the weights of the landers (GE, 657; AVCO, 762), the major difference between the two contractors' approaches was the number of landers; one for AVCO and two for GE. AVCO's lander was encapsulated before launch for sterility and for protection during the descent. The blunt body of the aeroshell would protect the lander during entry and slow the descent. A parachute, deployed when the aeroshell and heatshield were discarded, would slow the craft further. At impact, the lander would be protected by aluminum crush-up pads (touchdown velocity 12 meters per second). After a relatively hard landing, the craft would roll and tumble until it came to a stop, and six petals, which when closed protected the internal parts, would open and erect the lander and raise it off the ground. AVCO also planned to use radioisotope thermoelectric generators to provide electricity. General Electric's capsules by comparison were much simpler. They consisted of "moderately blunt sphere cones," which entered point downward instead of blunt end down as with the AVCO approach. General Electric proposed to use rockets, tip bars, and explosive anchors to orient the cone once it was on the surface.
Hearth told Webb at the December briefing that "the areas of agreement were quite significant even though the studies were conducted independently and separately of one another." Both contractors called for similar scientific capabilities, and "they agreed quite well on the prime technical problems and development problems" were. But would NASA underwrite Voyager missions to the planets beginning in l969?”
Above, along with much more, at:
history.nasa.gov/SP-4212/ch4.html
prevoyvoy_v_bw_o_n (unnumbered, 1963 poss. Avco photo)
“ROBOT LABORATORY—An artist’s drawing depicts one of the concepts (spherical) considered by Avco for the capsule Voyager that would land on Mars and do everything from analyze the soil to listen for the sound of animals.”
Note the upper “INSTRUMENTATION” labeled device, a Surveyor-like camera assembly. The lower looking suspiciously vacuum cleaner attachment-like. At this time, the atmosphere of Mars was possibly thought to be thick enough to facilitate a suction induced means of sample collection.
Doesn’t it look like when one gizmo or another extended out of R2-D2?
8.25" x ~11".
From Andrew LePage’s wonderful ‘Drew ExMachina’ website:
“During the 1960s, NASA performed studies of a number of potential Mars lander concepts for their second-generation planetary missions as part of the Voyager program. Not to be confused with NASA’s outer-planet explorers of the same name launched in 1977, the earlier Voyager program was meant to perform the second phase of planetary exploration after the initial reconnaissance performed by the Mariner program’s spacecraft in the 1960s and early-1970s. This Voyager series was to consist of orbiters carrying advanced landers to explore Venus and Mars during the 1970s. This incarnation of the Voyager program was cancelled in 1967 because of its increasing expense and eventually replaced by the relatively more modest Viking program to land on Mars.”
At:
www.drewexmachina.com/2014/08/07/the-automated-biological...
And, most surprisingly, at the NTRS, an Avco ‘Voyager’ design study from 1963. However, there’s no reference to a spherical design. Excellent early information nonetheless:
ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19650025712/downloads/1965002...
Last, but not least, a pertinent & fascinating excerpt from “SP-4212, On Mars: Exploration of the Red Planet. 1958-1978”, Chapter 4, “VOYAGER: PERILS OF ADVANCED PLANNING, 1960-1967”:
“…Engineers for AVCO and GE had studied Mars and Venus missions, with AVCO giving Venus greater attention, but it was obvious to both contractors that Mars was NASA's primary target. General Electric recommended two identical landers carried aboard a single orbiter bus. Primary [95] communications from the landers to Earth would be via a relay in the orbiter, with secondary links directly from the landers. Solar cells and batteries would be used to power the orbiter, while radioisotope thermoelectric generators would provide both electricity and heat for the lander. Having concentrated basically on Mars missions, the General Electric engineers emphasized "biological and geophysical-geological experiments," recommending Syrtis Major (10°N., 285° long.) as a landing site for one lander and Pandorae Fretum (24°S, 310° long.) for the second. These were two of the more interesting areas for biological exploration. The appearance of Syrtis Major did not change much with the seasons. Its boundaries "are sharp and stable, and it is one of the darkest areas of the planet." Pandorae Fretum did change with the seasons, the dark color developing in spring, deepening with summer, and becoming light in the fall for the duration of winter. While the choice of these sites would eliminate close examination of the polar regions and the "darkening wave," they considered their choices the best ones "in view of the high priority of the life detection [experiments] and the eventual requirements for choosing sites for manned landing missions," 27 GE would wait until after the first successful landings to define future sites, but AVCO made the proposals in table 11. 28
General Electric proposed a rather ambitious series of scientific investigations, considering the weight limits on instrumentation for both the orbiter (98 kilograms) and the lander (70 kg). Biological instruments would easily constitute a third of the payload projected for the lander, AVCO Corporation's landed science payload was greater (91 kg), but the proposed orbital instrumentation was less (61 kg). In either case, the weight was substantially more than the 23 kg of experiments that could have been landed with a Mariner B-class capsule. During more favorable Mars launch opportunities-1971 and 1973-larger scientific packages could be landed using the same orbiter and launch vehicles.
Besides the weights of the landers (GE, 657; AVCO, 762), the major difference between the two contractors' approaches was the number of landers; one for AVCO and two for GE. AVCO's lander was encapsulated before launch for sterility and for protection during the descent. The blunt body of the aeroshell would protect the lander during entry and slow the descent. A parachute, deployed when the aeroshell and heatshield were discarded, would slow the craft further. At impact, the lander would be protected by aluminum crush-up pads (touchdown velocity 12 meters per second). After a relatively hard landing, the craft would roll and tumble until it came to a stop, and six petals, which when closed protected the internal parts, would open and erect the lander and raise it off the ground. AVCO also planned to use radioisotope thermoelectric generators to provide electricity. General Electric's capsules by comparison were much simpler. They consisted of "moderately blunt sphere cones," which entered point downward instead of blunt end down as with the AVCO approach. General Electric proposed to use rockets, tip bars, and explosive anchors to orient the cone once it was on the surface.
Hearth told Webb at the December briefing that "the areas of agreement were quite significant even though the studies were conducted independently and separately of one another." Both contractors called for similar scientific capabilities, and "they agreed quite well on the prime technical problems and development problems" were. But would NASA underwrite Voyager missions to the planets beginning in l969?”
Above, along with much more, at:
history.nasa.gov/SP-4212/ch4.html