Mars 3's descent module was released at 09:14 UT on December 2, 1971, 4 hours 35 minutes before reaching Mars. The descent module entered the Martian atmosphere at roughly 5.7 km/s. Through aerodynamic braking, parachutes, and retrorockets, the lander achieved a soft landing at and began operations. However, after 20 seconds the instruments stopped working for unknown reasons, perhaps as a result of the massive surface dust storms raging at the time of landing. Mars 3 lander still managed to transmit a portion of the first picture of Martian surface. Meanwhile, the orbiter had suffered from a partial loss of fuel and did not have enough to put itself into a planned 25-hour orbit. The engine instead performed a truncated burn to put the spacecraft into a long 12-day-19-hour period orbit about Mars with an inclination thought to be similar to that of Mars 2 (48.9 degrees).