Russia's Aerospace Systems...going to Mars?

[meteo]

Remember that Russian company that proposed a manned Mars mission by 2009? No, well these guys have some pretty interesting projects in the works. Their site is cruiser.ru about half the site is under construction at any given moment.<br /><br />One the AKS-1 (http://cruiser.ru/eng/prod1.php) almost made it to launch but was taken off for technical reasons which I couldn't find. <br /><br />http://www.skyrocket.de/space/index_frame.htm?http://www.skyrocket.de/space/doc_sdat/aks-1.htm<br /><br />AKS-2 which is a simmilar project may lauch this year (no update on the site yet) as AKS-1 could try again I suppose.<br /><br />I found their tests schedule particularly interesting.<br /><br />///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////<br /><br />TEST SCHEDULE<br /><br />June 29, 2004 Dnepr launch vehicle will place AKS-1 technological satellite into orbit at the altitude of 800 km for carrying out a number of space experiments:<br /><br /> * testing systems and mechanisms for the deployment of big frameless structures and controlling their position in space;<br /> * testing the latest propellant-free spacecraft position control system;<br /> * testing three kinds of amorphous film solar batteries with silicon crystals;<br /> * the world's first test of using solar pressure for spacecraft motion control;<br /> * testing a new pulsed communication and data transmission system;<br /> * "Mirror" experiment to use a reflector to illuminate the night areas of the Earth from space;<br /> * "Wing" experiment to use the sail plane as the wing for creating the lifting force from atomic oxygen main flow.<br /><br />August 15 - September 20, 2004 The full-scale Mars rover landing and running gear, low pressure power wheel and high speed damper test programme.<br /><br />The dropping tests of the Mars rover weight-dimension model and landing and runn