The Mars 3 lander, a so called Passability Estimating Vehicle for Mars was designed and manufactured in Mobile Vehicle Engineering Institute by about 150 engineers team, led by Alexander Kemurdzhian. Vehicle was a small ‘Mars rover’ on board, which was planned to move across the surface on skis while connected to the lander with a 15-meter umbilical cable. Two small metal rods were used for autonomous obstacle avoidance, as radio signals from Earth would take too long to drive the rovers using remote control. The rover carried a dynamic penetrometer and a gamma ray densitometer.
The main PROP-M frame was a 4.5 kg (9.9 Lb) squat box (25 cm × 22 cm × 4 cm) with a small protrusion at the center. The frame was supported on two wide flat skis, one extending down from each side elevating the frame slightly above the surface. At the front of the box were obstacle detection bars. The rover was planned to be placed on the surface after landing by a manipulator arm and to move in the field of view of the television cameras and stop to make measurements every 1.5 meters.[5] Due to communication loss it is unknown if PROP-M rover was deployed.