Селитренное городище

FIRST DATA ON MARTIAN ATMOSPHERE COLLECTED 30 YEARS AGO

A lander of the Soviet interplanetary space station Mars-6 collected the first data on the Martian atmosphere 30 years ago. ?On March 12, 1974, man got the very first data regarding the atmosphere of the Red Planet?, said Igor Mitrofanov, head of laboratory of the Institute of Space Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The lander ?was collecting data on weather conditions of Mars? atmosphere for several minutes during its descent on to the Martian surface. The data was being relayed to the ground control through the Mars-6 in an online mode. The contact with the lander was lost 0.3 sec prior to its landing; it was also supposed to gather information about the surface,? said Mitrofanov.

According to Mitrofanov, Mars-6 was of the space vehicles in the so-called ?Armada of Four?. The Soviets consequently launched four space probes to Mars in 1973, namely Mars-4, Mars-5, Mars-6 and Mars-7. The first two were to become the satellites of Mars. They were also to facilitate the incoming probes to drop their landers to the Martian surface.

Yet the space expedition to Mars was apparently doomed. Mars-5 failed to slow down and slid into nothingness past the planet. The next space vehicle successfully went to orbit and made 22 turns round Mars but the contact was lost afterwards. Mars-7 was lost during its flight to the Red Planet. Only Mars-6 proved to be capable of fulfilling part of its mission, it supplied humanity with the first data on atmosphere of the mysterious planet, as reported by ITAR-TASS News Agency.