Mars
Quick Summary
The Soviet Union's Mars probe series aimed to explore the Red Planet, with missions launched between 1960 and 1980. While the U.S. also focused on Mars during this period, the Soviet program achieved several firsts. Mars 3, launched in 1971, was the first spacecraft to soft-land an instrumented capsule on Mars, though it transmitted data for only about 20 seconds due to a dust storm. Later Soviet missions, such as Phobos 1 and 2 in 1988, targeted Mars's moons. Despite these efforts, many Soviet Mars missions faced failures or did not achieve their primary objectives.1
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