Exploration of Mars failed upon impact. Mars 4 flew by the planet at a range of 2200 km returning one swath of pictures and radio occultation data, which constituted the first detection of the nightside ionosphere on Mars. Mars 7 probe separated prematurely from the carrying vehicle due to a problem in the operation of one of the onboard systems (attitude control or retro-rockets) and missed the planet by . In 1964, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory made two attempts at reaching Mars. Mariner 3 and Mariner 4 were identical spacecraft designed to carry out the first flybys of Mars. Mariner 3 was launched
Space probe Earth, traveling away from both the Earth and the Sun at a relatively faster speed than any other probe. As of September 12, 2013, "Voyager 1" is about 12 billion miles (19 billion kilometers) from the Sun. On August 25, 2012, "Voyager 1" became the first human made object to enter interstellar space. "Voyager 1" has not had a functioning plasma sensor since 1980, but a solar flare in 2012 allowed scientists from NASA to measure vibrations of the plasma surrounding the craft. The vibrations allowed scientists to measure the plasma to be much denser than measurements taken in the