Soviet Missions and the Mars Monsters!

Mars 2 and Mars 3 were both launched in 1971, corresponding with the launch of the US Mariner 9 mission. Mars 2 was successfully launched on 19 May 1971, and Mars 3 just 9 days later on 28 May 1971. November 27 that year saw the arrival of Mars 2 as it braked for Martian orbit. Just before this however, a capsule was ejected to the Martian surface. A soft landing was completed, but no signals were reported...

December 2 1971 saw the arrival of Mars 3 and a similar capsule again made a successful soft landing on the surface. Unfortunately, a global dust storm was at the time enveloping Mars, and after just 20 seconds, signals were lost. It is thought that the probe's failure was a result of the storm. These missions, although successfully engineered, were subject to unforeseen and very unfortunate circumstances, all of which produced very disappointing scientific results.

The next Soviet attempts at Martian exploration were in 1973. Mars 4 launched successfully, but in March 1974, a retro rocket failed to fire, and the craft flew straight past Mars. Mars 5 successfully launched on 25 July 1973, and on 12 February 1974 was injected into orbit. 10 orbits out of 20 produced scientific data. The magnetic field was measured, as was the atmosphere, with 20% Argon and a `quite high' water content. Mars 6 launched on 5 August 1973 and was not so lucky. Having made its descent toward the planet's surface, just 3/10 seconds before touching down, contact was lost. Similarly, after a succesful launch for Mars 7, the craft underwent problems and failed to intersect the planet at all! Finally, Phobos 2 which was previously heralded as a failure after it fell silent in March 1989, has since sent back a lot of data, particularly about the Martian magnetic field, showing it to be remarkably similar to that of Venus.