Tuesday, October 27, 2026

1996-11-16 · 30 years ago

Mars-96 — launch

Date in UTC

Mars 96 (sometimes called Mars-8) was a failed Mars mission launched in 1996 to investigate Mars by the Russian Space Forces and not directly related to the Soviet Mars probe program of the same name. After failure of the second fourth-stage burn, the probe assembly re-entered the Earth's atmosphere, breaking up over a 320 km (200 mi) long portion of the Pacific Ocean, Chile, and Bolivia. The Mars 96 spacecraft was based on the Phobos probes launched to Mars in 1988. They were of a new design at the time and both ultimately failed. For the Mars 96 mission the designers believed they had corrected the flaws of the Phobos probes, but the value of their improvements was never demonstrated due to the destruction of the probe during the launch phase.

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_96. Related NASA reference: https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/chronology.html#1996. Description adapted from Wikipedia contributors (CC BY-SA 4.0; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).

Category
Launches and Flight Tests
Type
Orbital launch
Subjects
Space transportation
Mission
Mars-96
Organization
Russian Military Space Forces
Vehicle
Proton-K/D-2
Location
GIK-5, Baykonur, Kazakstan
Country
RU
Outcome
Successful

Context and qualifications

Launch code: OS. Source references: NK9622-25; NK9810-25.

Sources and attribution

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