Soviet Vehicle “Set Foot” on Mars before the American Robot Rover

Space.com reports that probably, the Soviet probe “Mars-3” which landed to the Red planet in December, 1971 could be seen on photos of Mars’s surface made by MRO (Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter) probe. The object similar to this device, at first was sped out by the Russian enthusiasts and then experts of NASA agreed with their hypothesis.

Automatic station "Mars-3" started to Mars on May, 29, 1971. On December, 2 the landing module entered atmosphere of a planet and soft-landed - the first in the history and the only in the Soviet Martian program. The probe started transferring information, but in 14,5 seconds signal was lost.

According to the experts, electronic stuffing of the module was destroyed by electrostatic electricity which accumulates in extremely dry Martian conditions, new agency RIA Novosti reports.

In December, 2012 the founder of the community devoted to mars rover Curiosity Vitaly Egorov in social network "VKontakte" found the object similar to the Soviet station on the photos made by MRO probe. It was situated practically in the same point which the Soviet designers specified as the place of landing - 45 degrees south latitude, 158 degrees west longitude.

Egorov contacted the professor of the V.I. Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry Alexander Bazilevsky through whose intermediary on March, 10, 2013 NASA organized retake from MRO.

In the pictures with resolution about 25 centimeters per pixel you could see drop bar with soft landing engine, brake cone, parachute and the landing module itself about 1,5 meters in size. They note in NASA that position of these details really correspond to expected "Mars-3" but we shouldn’t exclude possibility of alternative explanations of the discovery.

Dmitry Cherny – editor of FORUM.msk – comments smiling as a child:

- Well, I know uncle Sascha Bazilevsky since preschool years and once was sparring with his aggressive and gloomy son Andrey. It's a small world, father-businessman already then, in the 1980s, brought up the son in the spirit of the capitalist jungle where it is necessary to manage to be the first to propose instead of to make the case in discussion... I mention it in connection to the fact of, as they would earlier say, "collusion" to the USA from the part of the Soviet (taught and educated by the Soviet state, Voronezh member of CPSU, typical party careerist – one of those who in due time ruined the USSR) expert speaks "for all our astronautics", may it rest in peace. The chief of mother's laboratory where she and other junior staff scientists performed work of unskilled workers which was then used for writing of personal theses of such people as Bazilevsky, Surkov, Florensky (the son of that priest) - most part of the time stays in the USA, sending from there specifications and grants. Here you are on-site financing which we have today and research respectively, such are the priorities – in the sphere where we also were pioneers. Also - in exploration of Venus.

For example, discovery of presence of water on Mars was made by the dead now Alexey Sukhanov who was not allowed to participate in the international scientific communities. Water on Mars - remember! - opened, to be more precise, theoretically assumed using pictures and reliefs he - the poet-dissident (unpublished while alive and after death only by my efforts in magazine Moskva and LitRossia) and the geologist by profession Alexey Sukhanov. The competitive scientific environment of the Soviet planetology as a whole was productive for the country but at the same time pernicious for some privates of this war for space exploration. What do we have as a result? The chief of the laboratory "comes to light" on TV, already gives lectures on TV channel "Culture", while the fact that he was not the only one who used achievements of the whole laboratory but the USA as well as though is not important to anybody. Well, science is international... The more so today – we have no race of arms, there’s no fight of systems, only peace cooperation. So easily the USSR conceded everything reached not simply by the hardest brainwork, but also by Collective - I specially focus attention on it as privatization was carried out here as well...

Well, we cooperated with the American experts since the time of "Soyuz-Appolon", however that cooperation was mutually advantageous. Our superiority in space wasn't challenged, far not all secrets were shared - unless at the level of cartography, analysis of extraterrestrial substance. While when the state moves back to "Russia which we lost", when all political forces are engaged in the fight for places in the Duma, not in the state interests (which form the basis, ideology, development strategy) - all positions, all structure of scientific aspiration into space are lost. Thus instead of penetrations to Mars our collaborators like Bazilevsky as Susanin lead NASA to a throne of pioneers... Alas, this subject can be developed further, but the main thing is clear – we won’t return to space without revolution, without social revision of literally ALL in today’s society. While we still have plenty of plans there!

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