The first successful soft landing on Mars was achieved by the Soviet Union with their Mars 3 mission. Mars 2 reached Mars on November 27 and Mars 3 made it to its destination on December 2. Achieves soft landingLess than five hours before reaching Mars, the descent module of Mars 3 had been released. With the Mars 2 lander having crashed, this made the Mars 3 mission the first ever to achieve a soft landing on Mars. While Mars 2 had completed 362 orbits of the red planet, Mars 3 had performed 20 orbits.

Source: The Hindu May 28, 2023 06:45 UTC