A Soviet spacecraft may have been spotted on Mars by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Space fans from Russia scanned NASA images to discover the spacecraft’s remains.
The craft landed on Mars in 1971, but mysteriously stopped working. The craft, Mars 3, worked for just 15 seconds before it stopped communications. It was part of a double mission launched by the Soviet Union in 1971. Mars 3′s twin craft, Mars 2, crashed on arrival at the Red Planet.
Photos by NASA’s MRO appear to show the Mars 3 lander and its parachute, heat shield, and other hardware. It jettisoned the majority of its hardware while landing. The Russian space fan group has followed the Curiosity rover, NASA’s latest project on Mars. At the group’s request, NASA flew the MRO over an area earlier this year that was thought to be the Mars 3 craft’s landing spot. The resulting pictures show features consistent with a spacecraft landing.