A Mars landing is a landing of a spacecraft on the surface of Mars. Of multiple attempted Mars landings by robotic, unmanned spacecraft, six were successful. There have also been studies for a possible manned mission to Mars, including a landing, but none have been attempted.

In 1969, the Soviet Union prepared a 5-ton orbiter called M-69. Two copies of the probe, Mars 1969A and Mars 1969B, were lost in launch related complications caused by problems with the newly developed Proton rockets.

In 1971, shortly after the Cosmos 419 (Mars 1971C), that intended to be a first Martian orbiter, was lost in the fourth stage of the launch due to issues concerning the failure in the separation of Cosmos' payload from the launch vehicle, the Soviet Union successfully sent probes Mars 2 and Mars 3, as part of the Mars probe program M-71. The Mars 2 and 3 probes each carried a lander, both of which failed upon landing. They were the first human artifacts to touch down on Mars. Mars 2 lander impacted on Mars only while Mars 3 was the first Martian lander and was able to transmit from Martian surface during 20 second the first data and a portion of the first picture. These spaceprobes also contained the first Mars mini-rovers, although they were broken on landing.