Yet the impulse to use unmanned craft was the right one.

The unmanned craft was intended to put a payload of around 7 to 8 tonnes in orbit, at 300 km altitude.

Officials said this schedule included tentative plans for dispatching an unmanned craft to bring back rock samples.

The unmanned craft is to orbit Venus and use radar to map the cloud-shrouded surface.

They therefore sent out a trio of unmanned craft in the hopes of contacting someone who could come to their aid.

In 1970 Luna 16 became the first unmanned craft to return Moon soil samples to the Earth.

The unmanned craft is designed to travel several kilometers a day.

The unmanned craft is spinning randomly and without power as it proceeds blindly on its way 10 million miles out in space.

In the future, he said, unmanned craft will be used not only for surveillance, as they are in Iraq, but for combat as well.

For the 1994 mission, Soviet engineers plan to send an unmanned craft into an orbit of Mars and then land another vehicle on the surface.