4-ton Soviet craft heads for Mars

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32612, 21 May 1971, Page 9

4-ton Soviet craft heads for Mars

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

MOSCOW, May 20.

A massive Soviet spacecraft weighing more than four tons headed for Mars today in the first Russian probe of the planet for seven years.

Tass News Agency described the craft as an interplanetary station, but gave no indication of its aims, other than “scientific research about the planet Mars and the space surrounding it.”

The craft—named Mars 2 —should reach its destination in six months.

It is the third probe launched by the Russians, and its most striking aspect is its size. It weighs 10,2501 b compared with the mere 26021 b of the last Soviet Venus craft.

Tass did not say whether the new craft would attempt to land on Mars, as the last Soviet interplanetary probe did on Venus. That craft, Venus-7, was the first to transmit data back to earth from the surface of another planet. The bulk of Mars 2 could make landing difficult, but the gravity of Mars is only about one-third of earth.

Last night’s launching marked a return to Mars exploration by the Russians after their recent experiments with orbital earth stations. It also coincided with the Texas death Mrs Dolores Pullard Johnson, aged 24, who, at eight feet two inches, was regarded as the world’s tallest woman, has died in a Texas hospital. Mrs Johnson had undergone surgery on March 10 for the removal of the brain tumour that had caused her body to produce too many growth hormones She had been a sideshow' attraction with a travelling circus.—Houston May 20.

United States postponement of the second stage in the latest Mariner unmanned mission to Mars.

A Mariner craft plunged into the Atlantic shortly after take-off earlier this month, and its sister ship will not blast off until a full investigation is complete. A British space expert said last week that the Soviet Union was also unsuccessful in launching a Mars probe earlier this month.

Mr Kenneth Gatland, vicepresident of the British Interplanetary Society said that Cosmos-419, launched on May 10, was intended to head for Mars, but failed to leave its parking orbit round the earth. Last December, an unnamed Soviet space designer said in an interview that com-puter-controlled vehicles similar to Russia’s Lunokhod moon buggy would one day explore Mars.

But to apply the experience of Lunokhod to Mars at this stage would be a major step for Soviet scientists, who have not examined Mars to the same extent as the moon.