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Onward to Mars

Onward to Mars
Onward to Mars In July Phobos 1, the first space probe to leave Earth for Mars since 1975, lifted off atop a Proton rocket from the Baikonur space complex in the Soviet republic of Kazakhstan. A few days later a second Phobos craft was launched on a similar mission. The probes' main purpose Is to explore and analyze Phobos, one of Mars' two quirky moonlets. These are the first In a series of increasingly ambitious robotic probes that the Soviet Union plans to send to Mars, culminating In what could be a joint US/USSR trip with human crews to the planet early In the next century. Chris Niedenthal/TIME Magazine