Exploration of the Moon and indeed of human history in general. The first man-made object to reach the Moon was the unmanned Soviet probe Luna 2, which made a hard landing on September 14, 1959, at 21:02:24 Z. The far side of the Moon was first photographed on October 7, 1959, by the Soviet probe Luna 3. Though vague by today's standards, the photos showed that the far side of the Moon almost completely lacked maria. In an effort to compete with these Soviet successes, U.S. President John F. Kennedy proposed the national goal of landing a human on the Moon. Speaking to a
Mars 2 of entry was too steep. The descent sequence did not operate as planned and the parachute did not deploy. The descent module became the first man-made object to impact the surface of Mars. The exact crash site is unknown, but it is estimated to be at . Attempts to contact the probe after the crash were unsuccessful. Mars 2 The Mars 2 was an unmanned space probe of the Mars program, a series of unmanned Mars landers and orbiters launched by the Soviet Union May 19, 1971. The Mars 2 and Mars 3 missions consisted of identical spacecraft, each with