How do you say ‘doh!’ in Russian?
The Mars 7 rover launched by the Soviets August 9, 1973, was
to study Mars by releasing a lander to measure temperature and pressure of the
atmosphere and to study soil composition.
Unfortunately, due to premature ejection, the lander, separating from the bus
4 hours early, missed the
entire planet and is now in a heliocentric orbit with the bus.
This failure followed on the heels of the Mars 4 probe which
failed to enter orbit; Mars 5 which successfully entered orbit but its
instrument compartment began to leak and it ceased operation in just a little
over two weeks; and Mars 6 which released a lander successfully, but after 224
seconds of transmitting data, contact was lost right before the probe was about
to fire its retrorockets for a soft landing.
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