Soviet spaceship orbits Mars

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32779, 2 December 1971, Page 1

Soviet spaceship orbits Mars

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) MOSCOW, December 1. A Soviet Mars probe orbited the red planet today, like the United States Mariner 9 spacecraft, after scoring a new space first by delivering a Soviet pennant to the Martian surface.

The pennant, bearing the nation’s emblem of hammer and sickle, was delivered to the surface in a capsule launched from the spaceship Mars 2, which went into orbit round Mars on Saturday. In a report last night, the Soviet news agency. Tass, said that Mars 2 was orbiting the planet every 18 hours at an altitude of between 800 and 15,500 miles. Meanwhile, the Mars 3 probe—launched nine days after Mars 2 last May—was still flearing the planet, Tass said. The report did not say whether it would also go into drbit. '

Official Soviet news media have given little away about the mission of the two craft, although there have been hints in the press that Mars 2 might photograph the planet, as its American counterpart is doing. Under an information exchange agreement. United States scientists have been passing on data provided by Mariner to their Soviet colleagues, including a warning about dust storms on Mars which hampered Mariner when it was taking pictures. . Since the Soviet spacecraft were launched, there has been speculation among Western space experts on what they will do. According to one theory, one probe is

intended to land on Mars while the other remains in orbit, acting as a kind of radio and television relay station. It was also thought an attempt might be made to scoop up a sample of Martian soil for analysis, as Soviet moon probes have done.

The two probes are being controlled from the Soviet long-distance space communications centre, which directed the highly successful lunar experiment with the Lunokhod automatic moon buggy. American scientists at the Pasadena jet propulsion laboratory were surprised by the long orbit period, which means that the Soviet craft is considerably further out from Mars than Mariner, whose orbit lasts 12 hours and ranges between 800 and 11,000 miles from the surDr William Pickering, director of the jet propulsion laboratory, said the capsule on the surface might be like the early probes Russia landed on the moon, in which case it would presumably radio back photographs very soon. It was not possible for Mariner to photograph the Russian craft. The fact that the Russians had agreed to set up a special link for exchanging information on the Mars spacecraft implied they were anticipating a long mission. Dr Pickering said.