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+--- Thread: 1971: The 1st soft landing on Mars, via Soviet spacecraft (travel) (/thread-12675.html)
1971: The 1st soft landing on Mars, via Soviet spacecraft (travel) - C C - Aug 7, 2022
Could This Be the Mars Soviet 3 Lander?
https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/5212/could-this-be-the-mars-soviet-3-lander/
The USSR successfully landed Mars 3 in 1971, but its transmission capabilities only survived for a little over 90 seconds, and the lone image it sent was obscured.
In addition to various atmospheric and surface sensors, the probe included a scoop to search for life signs in the soil, and even had a tethered rover.
Decades later, Mars missions seemed to tediously take years to incrementally move on to a more ambitious step. But in the 1970s they boldly (or recklessly?) tried to do much right off the bat.
How the small rover of Mars 3 supposedly worked (animation): https://www.planetary.org/space-images/mars3_roveranim
IMAGES (of the probe): https://duckduckgo.com/?q=ussr+mars+3+probe&t=ffab&iax=images&ia=images