Exploration of Mars space probe to orbit another planet when it entered into orbit around Mars. The amount of data returned by probes increased dramatically as technology improved. The first to contact the surface were two Soviet probes: Mars 2 lander on November 27 and Mars 3 lander on December 2, 1971Mars 2 failed during descent and Mars 3 about twenty seconds after the first Martian soft landing. Mars 6 failed during descent but did return some corrupted atmospheric data in 1974. The Soviet probes Phobos 1 and 2 were sent to Mars in 1988 to study Mars and its two moons, with
Mars Terahertz Microsatellite Wave Instrument) on board the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, which the institute jointly developed with ESA and DLR (German Aerospace Center). Unlike the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA), which is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, NICT's parent agency is the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC). MIC formally approved the Mars Terahertz Microsatellite in early 2017. The preliminary lander's dimensions are a 50 cm cube, and may have a mass of including propellant. Its landing system is proposed to employ an inflatable aeroshell decelerator, and an airbag. Mars Terahertz Microsatellite The Mars