Venera 3 became the first human-made object to reach another planet’s surface when it crashed into Venus on 1 March 1966.
The Soviet probe launched from Baikonur on 16 November 1965. It consisted of a carrier spacecraft and an entry capsule designed to descend through Venus’s atmosphere. A course correction in December placed it on a collision path with Venus, but communications were lost before arrival, probably because of overheating.
Venera 3 did not transmit scientific measurements from the surface, so its achievement was an impact rather than a successful operating landing. That distinction matters: Venera 7 became the first spacecraft to make a successful soft landing and transmit from another planet in 1970.
The mission also came before Venera 4, which returned the first direct measurements from another planet’s atmosphere in 1967. Thus, Venera 3 is correctly associated with the first impact on another planet, while later Venera missions achieved the first functioning landing, surface images and longer-lived surface experiments.