4MV (original) (raw)

The 4MV planetary probe (short for 4th-generation Mars-Venus probe) is a designation for a common design used for Soviet unmanned probes to Mars and Venus. It was an incremental improvement of earlier 3MV probes and was used for Mars missions 2 to 7 and Venera missions 9 to 16. The same base design was used for some earth-orbiting space observatories.