The Soviet Mars programme.

Beginning in 1960, the Soviet Union launched a number of probes to explore the planet Mars. While the contemporary Venus venture met with many successes, the Mars program, using the same spacecraft technology, met with failure. Only one mission was a total success (Mars 5). This paper reviews the Mars program, looking at the launch and arrival conditions |hat have applied and how the spacecraft have performed. Details will be given of future launch opportunities and a possible sample return mission will be examined.