Neither space probes completed its mission.
Mars 2 crash-landed on the planet and Mars 3 ceased transmissions less than two minutes after landing.
A 1972 Soviet stamp commemorating the Mars 2 and Mars 3 missions.
Photo:Wikimedia Commons
Both Mars 2 and Mars 3 consisted of identical spacecraft with identical hardware.
Mars 2 was launched on 19 May 1971 from Baikonur Cosmodrome.
It reached Marss orbit on 27 November 1971.
But the angle of entry was too steep and the descent system malfunctioned.
It was the first man-made object to reach Mars.
Mars 2/Mars 3 orbiter.
Mars 3 Lander model at the Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics in Russia.
Mars 3 was launched on 28 May 1971, and reached the planets orbit on 2 December 1971.
The engine instead performed a truncated burn to put the spacecraft into a highly-elliptical long-period orbit about Mars.
In any case, the insertion was a success.
The module entered the thin atmosphere at a shallow angle, allowing the aeroshields to achieve maximum aerobraking.
At this point the heat shields were ejected.
It was the first soft landing on the planet, and a massive achievement for Soviet scientists.
Evidently, the rover was not designed for extensive exploration.
Instead of wheels, the rover was equipped with skis and it was supposed to walk upon these.
During its brief transmission, the lander sent a partial, grainy image that was hard to identify.
It could have been the Martian surface, or the blowing dust storm, or simply radio noise.
The only image transmitted by the Mars 3 lander before it went silent.
They wanted something that could show something very definite very quickly, Harvey explained.
Decades later, while recounting the hectic days and Soviet bureaucratic urgency surrounding the Mars missions, V.G.
It operated for 85 days before its battery failed.
