Attempts To Land On Mars

Mars 3 4m no 172 28 may 1971 soviet union.

Attempts to land on mars.

Esa has made 2 unsuccessful attempts. Don lincoln writes that as nasa s insight spacecraft attempts to land on mars this monday scientists will be nervous. It found the long lost beagle 2 probe part of the european space agency s mars express mission the craft was to land on. Orbiter successful entered orbit on 2 december 1971 operated for 20 orbits.

The spacecraft beamed back 20 seconds of video data from the surface. Europe has been trying to land on mars since 2003 but none of the attempts have gone exactly according to plan. The mission was less than fruitful though. The first lander on mars soft landed on 2 december 1971.

Mars is a graveyard of failed probes and they only have a matter of minutes. This map shows all of those sites plus proposed landing regions for 3 future missions on a shaded relief map produced using mars global surveyor laser altimeter data. Russia has tried 3 times. Of those one mars 3 may have landed successfully but ceased communication soon after.

Earlier this year the mars reconnaissance orbiter made a big discovery. Another soviet lander and the first spacecraft to land successfully on mars.