Mars Probe 5

Mars Probe 5 was a British spacecraft sent on a secret mission to Mars. It was part of the British Space Programme run by Professor Ralph Cornish of the British Rocket Group. It had recently launched by July 1969.

Colonel Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart learned about this mission from top secret files. (PROSE: Moon Blink)

Behind the scenes
The Mars Probe missions are ignored by the Doctor Who television story The Waters of Mars, which referred to the human colony founded in 2058 as being made up of the "very first humans on Mars". Further complicating matters, an on-screen obituary in The Waters of Mars mentions that the captain of the Bowie Base One colony, Adelaide Brooke, along with two other unidentified astronauts, had already landed on Mars when Adelaide was 42 in the year 2041.