On Aug. 9, 1973, the USSR launched its Mars-7 (or 3MP No.51P) spacecraft. Mars-7 was the last mission of the country’s Mars Program. It consisted of a lander and an orbiter set to loop around the Red Planet, collecting vital data.
Unfortunately, it was not to be.
The launch at 17:00:17 UTC on 9 August 1973 went as planned, with the first three stages of Proton-K carrier rocket placing the spacecraft and its upper stage into a low Earth parking orbit before the Blok D unit fired to propel Mars-7 into a sun-centered orbit that would carry it to the fourth planet from the sun.
Read more: Mars missions: A brief history
It was when Mars-7 reached its destination on March 9, 1974, the problems began.
First, the spacecraft’s lander failed to successfully separate from its carrier. Then, after separation had been accomplished and the descent had begun, a retrorocket failed, and the lander missed the atmosphere of Mars, thwarting a landing. The issue was blamed on faulty transistors that had previously doomed the Mars-4 misson.
Mars-7 was left drifting around the sun.
–Robert Lea
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