Dec. 2, 1971: Mars 3 lands on the Moon

In 2012, citizen scientists in Russia spotted features in photos from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter that they suspect to be the remains of Mars 3. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

Key Takeaways:

• In May 1971, the Soviet Union initiated the Mars 2 and Mars 3 twin missions towards the Red Planet.
• The Mars 2 lander unfortunately crashed on November 27, 1971, as a consequence of a parachute deployment failure.
• The Mars 3 lander successfully performed the first soft landing on Mars on December 2, 1971, but lost contact after approximately 14 seconds, a failure attributed to a planet-wide dust storm.
• Both the Mars 2 and Mars 3 orbiters operated for around four months, yielding a combined 60 photographs, though the quality of these images was compromised by the concurrent dust storm.

Key takeaways sponsored by The Space Store

In May 1971, the Soviet Union launched twin missions to Mars: Mars 2 and 3. Both spacecraft made it to the Red Planet, arriving a little less than a week apart. But the Mars 2 lander crashed into the martian surface on Nov. 27 when its parachute failed to deploy. Mars 3’s lander separated from its orbiter and descended to the planet on Dec. 2, where it was to release a rover. While the mission successfully achieved the first soft landing on Mars, it only functioned for about 14 seconds before contact was lost. A planet-wide dust storm at the time of the missions’ arrival likely affected the lander’s functionality. Though the orbiters functioned successfully for about four months, returning a combined 60 photos, the storm also affected the quality of the images.