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Why did Mars 3 go silent after 14.5 seconds?
The Soviet Mars 3 lander touched down intact on 2 December 1971, making the first survivable landing on Mars[1]. It began sending a surface image minutes later, but the transmission stopped after 14.5 seconds, and contact was never regained[2].
Why it stopped is uncertain. Amid a planet-wide dust storm, controllers suspected that coronal discharge, an electrical discharge, might have shorted the lander’s instruments. The book presents this as their explanation, not a proven cause[3]. The image received was gray and featureless[4].
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