50 years from the date of landing of the first spacecraft on another planet

On March 1, 1966, the Venera-3, a Soviet automatic interplanetary station, reached Venus and crashed into its surface in the region from −20 ° to + 20 ° in latitude and from 60 ° to 80 ° east longitude (east of crater Mead) . The Venus-3 station was the first spacecraft to reach the surface of not only Venus, but of another planet in general.

Venus-3 flew in a pair with Venus-2, which was launched 4 days earlier. Unfortunately, the data on the planet Venus could not be transmitted to the devices, but the information obtained during the flight was of great value for questions related to long-distance communications and interplanetary flights. Magnetic fields, cosmic rays, low-energy charged particle fluxes, solar plasma streams and their energy spectra, cosmic radio emissions and micrometeors were studied.

The Venus-3 station was launched on November 16, 1965 from the Baikonur cosmodrome. The Venus-3 station consisted of an orbital compartment and a descent module. The descent vehicle was a sphere with a diameter of 90 centimeters and was equipped with a parachute for a soft landing.
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In the descent vehicle was placed a metal globe of the Earth with a diameter of 70 millimeters, inside which was a pennant with the image of the coat of arms of the Soviet Union. Scientific instruments were also installed in the descent vehicle. Before launching, it was thoroughly sterilized to prevent the biological contamination of Venus.

During the flight with the station Venera-3, 63 communication sessions were conducted (and 26 with Venus-2). However, the station’s control system failed before it reached Venus, and the station did not transmit any data on Venus.

Before Venus 3, Soviet engineers made a dozen unsuccessful or partially successful attempts to send a spacecraft to our neighbor. In the United States, two attempts were made: Mariner 1, crashed at launch, and Mariner 2, flying past Venus, but experiencing a malfunction.

Five years after this event, the surface of Mars touched the first spacecraft, also made in the USSR - Mars-2 .