Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Mars 3 achieves the first soft landing on Mars 1971




Mars 3, a space probe from the Soviet space program, made a soft landing on Mars, December 2, 1971.  However, 14.5 seconds after touchdown, transmissions stopped mysteriously.  One possible cause of the failure could have been due to the enormous dust storm taking place on Mars at the time. 

The Mars 3 lander was sterilized so it would not contaminate the Martian environment.  So how many space probes litter the Martian surface now?  That ISN'T contamination?

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