first spacecraft to visit mars

Why we explore Mars—and what decades of missions have revealed

In the 1960s, humans set out to discover what the red planet has to teach us. Now, NASA is hoping to land the first humans on Mars by the 2030s.

Mars has captivated humans since we first set eyes on it as a star-like object in the night sky. Early on, its reddish hue set the planet apart from its shimmering siblings, each compelling in its own way, but none other tracing a ruddy arc through Earth’s heavens. Then, in the late 1800s, telescopes first revealed a surface full of intriguing features—patterns and landforms that scientists at first wrongly ascribed to a bustling Martian civilization. Now, we know there are no artificial constructions on Mars. But we’ve also learned that, until 3.5 billion years ago, the dry, toxic planet we see today might have once been as habitable as Earth.

Since the 1960s, humans have set out to discover what Mars can teach us about how planets grow and evolve, and whether it has ever hosted alien life. So far, only uncrewed spacecraft have made the trip to the red planet, but that could soon change. NASA is hoping to land the first humans on Mars by the 2030s—and several new missions are launching before then to push exploration forward. Here’s a look at why these journeys are so important—and what humans have learned about Mars through decades of exploration.

Why explore Mars

Over the last century, everything we’ve learned about Mars suggests that the planet was once quite capable of hosting ecosystems—and that it might still be an incubator for microbial life today.

Mars is the fourth rock from the sun, just after Earth. It is just a smidge more than half of Earth’s size , with gravity only 38 percent that of Earth’s. It takes longer than Earth to complete a full orbit around the sun—but it rotates around its axis at roughly the same speed. That’s why one year on Mars lasts for 687 Earth days , while a day on Mars is just 40 minutes longer than on Earth.

Despite its smaller size, the planet’s land area is also roughly equivalent to the surface area of Earth’s continents —meaning that, at least in theory, Mars has the same amount of habitable real estate. Unfortunately, the planet is now wrapped in a thin carbon dioxide atmosphere and cannot support earthly life-forms. Methane gas also periodically appears in the atmosphere of this desiccated world, and the soil contains compounds that would be toxic to life as we know it. Although water does exist on Mars, it’s locked into the planet’s icy polar caps and buried, perhaps in abundance, beneath the Martian surface .

Today, when scientists scrutinize the Martian surface, they see features that are unquestionably the work of ancient, flowing liquids : branching streams, river valleys, basins, and deltas. Those observations suggest that the planet may have once had a vast ocean covering its northern hemisphere. Elsewhere, rainstorms soaked the landscape, lakes pooled, and rivers gushed, carving troughs into the terrain. It was also likely wrapped in a thick atmosphere capable of maintaining liquid water at Martian temperatures and pressures.

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Somewhere during Martian evolution, the planet went through a dramatic transformation, and a world that was once rather Earthlike became the dusty, dry husk we see today. The question now is, what happened? Where did those liquids go, and what happened to the Martian atmosphere ?

Exploring Mars helps scientists learn about momentous shifts in climate that can fundamentally alter planets. It also lets us look for biosignatures, signs that might reveal whether life was abundant in the planet’s past—and if it still exists on Mars today. And, the more we learn about Mars, the better equipped we’ll be to try to make a living there, someday in the future.

Past missions, major discoveries

Since the 1960s, humans have sent dozens of spacecraft to study Mars . Early missions were flybys, with spacecraft furiously snapping photos as they zoomed past. Later, probes pulled into orbit around Mars; more recently, landers and rovers have touched down on the surface.

But sending a spacecraft to Mars is hard , and landing on the planet is even harder. The thin Martian atmosphere makes descent tricky, and more than 60 percent of landing attempts have failed. So far, four space agencies—NASA, Russia’s Roscosmos, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO)—have put spacecraft in Martian orbit. With eight successful landings, the United States is the only country that has operated a craft on the planet’s surface. The United Arab Emirates and China might join that club if their recently launched Hope and Tianwen-1 missions reach the red planet safely in February 2021.

Early highlights of Mars missions include NASA's Mariner 4 spacecraft , which swung by Mars in July 1965 and captured the first close-up images of this foreign world. In 1971, the Soviet space program sent the first spacecraft into Martian orbit. Called Mars 3 , it returned roughly eight months of observations about the planet's topography, atmosphere, weather, and geology. The mission also sent a lander to the surface, but it returned data for only about 20 seconds before going quiet.

Over the subsequent decades, orbiters returned far more detailed data on the planet's atmosphere and surface, and finally dispelled the notion, widely held by scientists since the late 1800s, that Martian canals were built by an alien civilization. They also revealed some truly dramatic features: the small world boasts the largest volcanoes in the solar system, and one of the largest canyons yet discovered—a chasm as long as the continental United States. Dust storms regularly sweep over its plains, and winds whip up localized dust devils.

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In 1976, NASA’s Viking 1 and 2 became the first spacecraft to successfully operate on the planet’s surface, returning photos until 1982. They also conducted biological experiments on Martian soil that were designed to uncover signs of life in space—but their results were inconclusive , and scientists still disagree over how to interpret the data.

NASA’s Mars Pathfinder mission , launched in 1996, put the first free-moving rover—called Sojourner—on the planet. Its successors include the rovers Spirit and Opportunity , which explored the planet for far longer than expected and returned more than 100,000 images before dust storms obliterated their solar panels in the 2010s.

Now, two NASA spacecraft are active on the Martian surface: InSight is probing the planet’s interior and it has already revealed that “ marsquakes” routinely rattle its surface . The Curiosity rover , launched in 2012, is also still wheeling around in Gale Crater, taking otherworldly selfies, and studying the rocks and sediments deposited in the crater’s ancient lakebed.

Several spacecraft are transmitting data from orbit: NASA’s MAVEN orbiter , Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter , and Mars Odyssey ; ESA’s Mars Express and Trace Gas Orbiter ; and India’s Mars Orbiter Mission .

Together, these missions have shown scientists that Mars is an active planet that is rich in the ingredients needed for life as we know it—water, organic carbon , and an energy source. Now, the question is: Did life ever evolve on Mars , and is it still around?

Future of Mars exploration

Once every 26 months , Earth and Mars are aligned in a way that minimizes travel times and expense , enabling spacecraft to make the interplanetary journey in roughly half a year. Earth’s space agencies tend to launch probes during these conjunctions, the most recent of which happens in the summer of 2020. Three countries are sending spacecraft to Mars during this window: The United Arab Emirates, which launched its Hope spacecraft on July 20 and will orbit Mars to study its atmosphere and weather patterns; China, which launched its Tianwen-1 on July 23 , and the United States, currently targeting July 30 for the launch of its Perseverance rover .

Perseverance is a large, six-wheeled rover equipped with a suite of sophisticated instruments. Its target is Jezero Crater, site of an ancient river delta , and a likely location for ancient life-forms to have thrived. Once on the surface, Perseverance will study Martian climate and weather, test technologies that could help humans survive on Mars, and collect samples from dozens of rocks that will eventually be brought to Earth. Among its goals is helping to determine whether Mars was—or is—inhabited, making it a true life-finding Mars mission.

All of the robotic activity is, of course, laying the groundwork for sending humans to the next world over. NASA is targeting the 2030s as a reasonable timeframe for setting the first boots on Mars, and is developing a space capsule, Orion , that will be able to ferry humans to the moon and beyond.

Private spaceflight companies such as SpaceX are also getting into the Mars game. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has repeatedly said that humanity must become “ a multiplanetary species ” if we are to survive, and he is working on a plan that could see a million people living on Mars before the end of this century.

Soon, in one way or another, humanity may finally know whether our neighboring planet ever hosted life—and whether there’s a future for our species on another world.

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Every mission to Mars ever

Today, there are more spacecraft operating at Mars than any planet besides Earth — from orbiters to landers and rovers.

Mars has been historically unkind to our attempts to send spacecraft there, with roughly half of all Mars missions failing. That percentage has improved in recent years.

Active Missions

Perseverance, nasa's newest mars rover.

NASA's Perseverance rover is searching for past life on Mars and collecting samples for future return to Earth.

Tianwen-1 and Zhurong, China's Mars orbiter and rover

China’s first Mars mission is searching for pockets of water beneath the surface that could host life.

Hope, the United Arab Emirates' Mars mission

The UAE Hope Mars Mission is building a complete picture of Mars' climate.

The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, mapping Mars’ atmosphere

The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, a collaboration between the European Space Agency and the Russian space agency Roscosmos, launched in March 2016 and arrived at Mars later that year.

MAVEN, studying how Mars lost its atmosphere

NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution spacecraft, MAVEN, studies how Mars loses its atmosphere to space. The orbiter also relays communications between surface missions and Earth.

Curiosity, exploring Mars' surface

NASA's Curiosity rover landed on Mars in 2012 to search for evidence that the planet could once have supported Earth-like life.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, studying the Red Planet's climate and geology

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is an orbiting spacecraft studying the geology and climate of the planet since 2006. It hosts the most powerful high-resolution camera ever sent to Mars.

Mars Express, studying Mars from orbit

Mars Express was the European Space Agency’s first planetary mission when it launched in 2003.

NASA's Odyssey, studying Mars' surface

Odyssey monitors Mars’ surface changes and is a critical communications relay between surface spacecraft and Earth.

Future Missions

ESCAPADE The NASA-funded Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (ESCAPADE) mission will launch in 2024. It consists of twin Mars orbiters that will answer deep questions about how the red planet's formerly thick atmosphere has been stripped away by solar radiation over time.

MMX, Japan’s Martian Moons eXploration mission

MMX launches in 2026 to study Mars' moons and return samples from Phobos to Earth in 2031.

Mars Sample Return, an international project to bring Mars to Earth

Despite advances in space technology, certain science questions, including whether or not a Mars rock contains signs of ancient life, can only be answered in Earth-based laboratories.

China Mars sample return China is planning to launch a series of missions in 2030 that will return a sample from Mars.

ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover

The European Space Agency's Rosalind Franklin rover will search for signs of life on Mars.

Past Missions

Insight, nasa's mars lander that studied the planet's interior.

InSight was a Mars lander studying the red planet's interior to learn how other worlds are made.

Mangalyaan, India’s first Mars mission

Mangalyaan was India's Mars orbiter that observed the planet from 2014 to 2022.

Phobos-Grunt Russia's Phobos-Grunt sample return mission never left orbit due to a rocket failure, and eventually reentered Earth's atmosphere and crashed into the southern Pacific ocean. It was carrying The Planetary Society's LIFE experiment .

Rosetta and Philae The European Space Agency's Rosetta and Philae spacecraft flew by Mars on 25 February 2007 on its way to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Phoenix NASA's Phoenix spacecraft landed near Mars' north pole to study the water ice found close to the surface there. Its arm dug trenches into the soil and delivered samples to sophisticated chemical analysis instruments. It carried The Planetary Society's Visions of Mars DVD .

Mars Exploration Rovers

The twin Mars Exploration Rovers (MER), Spirit and Opportunity, were robot field geologists. They confirmed liquid water once flowed across the Martian surface. Both long outlasted their planned 90-day lifetimes. Following their landings on 3 and 24 January 2004, Spirit drove 7.73 kilometers and worked for 2210 sols (Martian days), until 22 March 2010. Opportunity drove 45.16 kilometers and worked for at least 5111 sols; the rover stopped responding on 10 June 2018, and the mission was declared over on 13 February 2019.

Mars Polar Lander NASA's Mars Polar Lander would have studied a region near Mars' south pole. It crash-landed, carrying The Planetary Society’s Mars Microphone , the first crowdfunded science instrument to fly to another planet.

Nozomi Originally scheduled to arrive at Mars in October 1999, Nozomi failed to gain enough speed during an Earth flyby on December 21, 1998. The spacecraft also used much more fuel than predicted. A looping trajectory was developed, including two more Earth flybys, to return Nozomi to Mars for orbit insertion in December 2003. But on April 21, 2002, a powerful solar flare damaged Nozomi’s computer. As a result, Nozomi’s hydrazine fuel froze during the long interplanetary trek and mission controllers were unable to place it into orbit. Nozomi flew by Mars in 2003 at a distance of 1,000 kilometers (600 miles), and is now in a two-year orbit around the Sun.

Mars Climate Orbiter Failed Mars orbiter (NASA) Launch: December 11, 1998 Mars Climate Orbiter was lost on September 23, 1999, when a mathematical conversion error placed the spacecraft too close to Mars at the time of orbital insertion. Mars Climate Orbiter carried a few re-flown instruments from Mars Observer, marking the second failure for those experiments.

Mars Pathfinder & Sojourner

The Pathfinder mission deployed the first-ever wheeled rover on Mars, and technologies developed for it paved the way for future, more sophisticated exploration of the red planet.

Mars 96 Failed Mars orbiter, lander, and two penetrators (Russian Space Agency) Launch: November 16, 1996 The rocket carrying the spacecraft launched successfully, but its fourth stage ignited prematurely and sent the spacecraft crashing into the ocean. Several of the science instruments originally built for Mars 96 were later flown on ESA’s Mars Express.

Mars Global Surveyor Highly successful orbiter (NASA) Launch: November 7, 1996 Mars arrival: September 12, 1997 Contact lost: November 5, 2006 Mars Global Surveyor was the first completely successful Mars orbiter since Viking 1 shut down in 1980. The start of Mars Global Surveyor’s science mission was delayed due to a problem with one of its solar panels that caused its aerobraking period to last for a year and a half. Once science operations began in March 1999, Mars Global Surveyor provided scientists with a wealth of images and data, including the highest-resolution images yet achieved from orbit. Many of the Mars Observer instruments were re-flown on Mars Global Surveyor.

Mars Observer Launched in 1992, Mars Observer was designed to study the Red Planet from orbit. On August 21, 1993, only three days away from Mars, all contact with the spacecraft was suddenly lost. It is possible that Mars Observer followed its onboard program and is in orbit around Mars. However, the results of failure investigations suggest that a fuel line ruptured during tank pressurization, which would have caused the spacecraft to spin uncontrollably and fail to enter orbit. Most of the science instruments that were originally built for Mars Observer were eventually “re-flown” on subsequent orbiters.

Phobos 2 Mostly failed Mars orbiter and two Phobos landers Launch: July 12, 1988 Mars arrival: January 29, 1989 Phobos 2 was designed to orbit Mars and land a "hopper" and a lander on the surface of Phobos. The spacecraft successfully went into orbit and began sending back preliminary data. Then, on March 27, 1989, just before the spacecraft was to move within 50 meters of Phobos and deploy the two landers, the spacecraft's onboard computer malfunctioned and the mission was lost.

Phobos 1 Failed Mars orbiter (USSR) Launch: July 7, 1988 Phobos 1 was designed to study the Sun and interplanetary space while on its way to Mars. Once in orbit around Mars, it was going to study the red planet and take close-up images of its moon Phobos. However, on September 2, 1988, only two months into the flight, controllers on the ground accidentally uploaded software containing a command that deactivated the spacecraft's attitude control thrusters. The spacecraft then turned its solar panels away from the Sun and was unable to recharge its batteries. As a result, the mission was lost.

Viking 1 and 2, NASA’s first Mars landers

No one knew what the surface of Mars looked like up close until NASA's Viking 1 spacecraft landed there in 1976.

Mars 7 Failed descent attempt Launch: August 9, 1973 The Mars 7 lander separated too early, causing it to miss the planet by 1,300 kilometers (800 miles).

Mars 6 Slightly successful descent craft and flyby Launch: August 5, 1973 Mars arrival: March 12, 1974 The Mars 6 descent craft separated successfully from the main spacecraft and descended through the atmosphere, transmitting 224 seconds of data before abruptly cutting off (either when the retrorockets fired or when it slammed into the ground). Although this was the first data of its kind (from within the Martian atmosphere), most of it was garbled and unusable due to the microchip problem. Mars 6 landed at 23.90°S, 19.42°W.

Mars 5 Initially successful Mars orbiter, failed after 22 days Launch: July 25, 1973 Mars arrival: February 12, 1974 Mars 5 entered orbit successfully, but after completing 22 orbits and returning 60 images the spacecraft malfunctioned and the mission ended.

Mars 4 Failed Mars orbiter attempt (successful as a flyby) (USSR) Launch: July 21, 1973 Mars flyby: February 10, 1974 The microchip problem caused the failure of the Mars 4 orbiter to fire its orbit insertion rockets. It flew by Mars at a distance of 2,200 kilometers (1,370 miles), taking one set of images and collecting limited data. It continued to function after the flyby, returning data from solar orbit.

Mars 2 and Mars 3 The identical Soviet Mars 2 and Mars 3 spacecraft, launched in 1971, each released descent craft 4.5 hours prior to their arrivals at Mars. But the landers had the misfortune of arriving at Mars during one of the greatest dust storms in recorded history. The Mars 2 probe descended at a steeper angle and faster rate than intended and crashed. However, the Mars 3 probe successfully soft-landed near 45°S, 158°W. It operated for 20 seconds on the surface before mysteriously failing, possibly because it was blown over by the wind. Before failing, Mars 3 may have deployed the first tiny rover onto the surface of Mars. The Mars 2 orbiter was successfully placed in an 18-hour orbit, where it completed 362 orbits. The Mars 3 orbiter, short on fuel, ended up in an almost 13-day orbit. Both spacecraft were shut down on August 22, 1972. Together, Mars 2 and 3 returned 60 images of Mars, recorded temperatures, produced surface relief maps, and studied the Martian gravity and magnetic fields.

Mariner 9 In 1971, Mariner 9 was the first spacecraft to orbit another planet. However, excitement for its arrival was subdued by a dark cloud — literally. A Martian dust storm, which had started in late September 1971, had grown to cover most of the planet. Mission scientists had to wait about a month and a half until the dust settled before they could begin the science portion of the mission. Mariner 9 took a total of 7,329 images of Mars, studied its atmosphere and surface, and analyzed the planet's gravity and topography. The spacecraft also provided scientists with the first close-up views of Phobos and Deimos, the two moons of Mars.

Kosmos 419 Failed Mars orbiter attempt (USSR) Launch: May 10, 1971 Kosmos 419 reached Earth orbit, but its fourth stage rocket, which would have sent the spacecraft on its way to Mars, failed to ignite. The spacecraft re-entered the atmosphere and was destroyed.

Mariner 8 Failed Mars flyby attempt (NASA) Launch: May 8, 1971 Mariner 8, a twin to the successful Mariner 9, failed to reach Earth orbit.

Mars 1969A and Mars 1969B The rockets carrying each spacecraft failed shortly after launch, thereby ending the mission before any of the spacecraft could get to Earth orbit.

Mariner 6 and Mariner 7 Mariner 6 and 7 were identical spacecraft arriving at Mars five days apart in 1969. Mariner 6 flew by Mars at an altitude of 3,431 kilometers (2,131 miles) and Mariner 7 at 3,430 kilometers (2,131 miles). Mariner 6 returned 75 images, and Mariner 7 126 images. Data from the twin spacecraft helped establish the mass, radius, and shape of Mars and revealed that its southern polar ice cap was composed of carbon dioxide. The spacecraft are now in solar orbits.

Zond 2 Failed Mars flyby and descent craft attempt (USSR) Launch: November 30, 1964 Controllers lost contact with Zond 2 after a mid-course correction maneuver while the spacecraft was on its way to Mars. The spacecraft is now in a solar orbit.

Mariner 4 Successful Mars flyby (NASA) Launch: November 28, 1964 Mars flyby: July 14, 1965 Mariner 4 was the first spacecraft to fly by Mars and obtain close-up pictures of the Red Planet, passing within 9,844 kilometers (6,117 miles) of Mars. It then took four days to transmit the data back to Earth. Mariner 4 imaged a large, ancient crater on Mars and confirmed the existence of a thin Martian atmosphere composed largely of carbon dioxide.

Mariner 3 Failed Mars flyby attempt (NASA) Launch: November 5, 1964 A shield that was designed to protect Mariner 3's instruments during launch failed to release once the spacecraft had reached Earth orbit. With its instruments covered and the extra weight of the shield dragging it down, the spacecraft was unable to obtain the necessary trajectory to send it on to Mars. The spacecraft is now in a solar orbit.

Mars 1 (Sputnik 23) Failed Mars flyby attempt (USSR) Launch: November 1, 1962 Mars 1 launched successfully and began the trip to Mars, returning data on interplanetary space. However, controllers lost contact with Mars 1 on March 21, 1963, when the spacecraft was 107 million kilometers (66 million miles) from Earth and signal was lost. The spacecraft is now in a solar orbit.

Korabl 11 (Sputnik 22) and Korabl 13 (Sputnik 24) Launched in 1962, the Soviet spacecraft Korabl 11 and 13 both broke apart after reaching Earth orbit.

Korabl 4 (Marsnik 1) and Korabl 5 (Marsnik 2) Launched in 1960, Korabl 4 and 5 were the Soviet Union's first attempts at interplanetary probes. The third stage of both launch vehicles failed, and neither obtained Earth orbit.

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NASA Official: Dave Williams, [email protected] Original Page Author: Malcolm J. Shaw, [email protected] Last Updated: 15 December 2015, DRW

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Meet the 3 Spacecraft That Made It to Mars

By Eleanor Lutz July 26, 2020

Last summer, three missions set out on a journey of millions of miles. Bound for Mars, the trio carry an array of state-of-the-art instruments to explore the red planet.

Hope Orbiter

Launched july 19.

Hope was the first spacecraft to launch to Mars last summer, and the first Mars mission for the United Arab Emirates .

The orbiter will observe Mars from space, forming a detailed picture of the planet’s atmosphere and its weather with a suite of imaging devices. A camera will capture high-resolution images of the planet. An infrared spectrometer will study dust, ice clouds, water vapor and temperature in the lower atmosphere. And an ultraviolet spectrometer will investigate carbon monoxide, hydrogen and oxygen in the upper atmosphere.

A six-foot antenna will communicate with Earth

THERMAL BLANKET

A protective layer of insulation around the orbiter gives it a gold appearance

SOLAR PANELS

Will unfurl after launch and charge the onboard battery

Hope is about as tall as a person and weighs almost 3,000 pounds

Will capture high-resolution images of Mars

Infrared Spectrometer

Will study dust, ice clouds, water vapor and temperature in the lower atmosphere

ULTRAVIOLET SPECTROMETER

Will investigate carbon monoxide, hydrogen and oxygen in the upper atmosphere

To protect from extreme temperatures

Will charge the onboard battery

Ultraviolet Spectrometer

Hope is about as tall as a person

Launched July 23

China is sending an orbiter, lander and rover to Mars — the only mission last year to attempt a three-pronged exploration . After the spacecraft reaches Mars, the landing pod will detach from the orbiter and descend to the planet’s surface. The orbiter will remain in space and observe the planet using seven instruments.

A parachute attached to the lander’s protective shell will slow the descent. Next, a set of struts will deploy midair. A thruster attached to the bottom of the lander will also help guide the vehicle to a softer landing.

Once on the surface, a ramp will slide out so the rover can drive away. The rover has two sets of solar panel wings that will unfurl after landing.

A parachute attached to a protective SHELL will slow the lander’s descent. Next, a set of STRUTS will deploy midair. Once on the surface, a RAMP will slide out so the rover can drive off.

After the orbiter reaches Mars, the landing probe will detach and descend to the planet’s surface.

Four solar panel wings will unfurl after landing.

A parachute attached to a protective SHELL will slow the descent. Next, a set of STRUTS will deploy midair. After landing, a RAMP will slide out so the rover can drive off.

With four solar panels

A parachute attached to the SHELL will slow the descent. Next, four STRUTS will deploy midair. After landing, a RAMP will slide out so the rover can drive off.

Perseverance

Launched july 30.

The NASA mission includes Perseverance, a 2,200-pound rover, and Ingenuity, an experimental Mars helicopter . The Ingenuity helicopter weighs about four pounds, and will be the first to attempt powered flight on another planet.

The Perseverance rover’s design is based on Curiosity, a successful NASA mission that landed on Mars in 2012. The plutonium power supply is designed to last more than a decade. The rover carries 19 cameras and a drill to extract core samples from rocks.

Perseverance also uses a suspension system to drive over obstacles. The rover can turn a full 360 degrees in place, using six individually motorized aluminum wheels.

Ingenuity Helicopter

The four-pound aircraft will communicate wirelessly with the Perseverance rover.

Solar Panel

Four carbon-fiber blades will spin at about 2,400 r.p.m.

The plutonium-based power supply will charge the rover’s batteries.

Instruments will take videos, panoramas and photographs. A laser will study the chemistry of Martian rocks.

Will identify chemical elements to seek signs of past life on Mars.

Will transmit data directly to Earth.

Robotic arm

A turret with many instruments is attached to a 7-foot robotic arm. A drill will extract samples from Martian rocks. The Sherloc device will identify molecules and minerals to detect potential biosignatures, with help from the Watson camera.

Perseverance Rover

The 2,200 pound rover will explore Jezero Crater. It has aluminum wheels and a suspension system to drive over obstacles.

The aircraft will communicate wirelessly with the rover.

Solar panel

Perseverance rover

A turret with many instruments is attached to a 7-foot robotic arm. A drill will extract samples from Martian rocks. The Sherloc device will identify molecules and minerals to detect potential biosignatures, with help from the Watson camera. PiXl will identify chemical elements to seek signs of past life on Mars.

The trio joined dozens of other spacecraft , past and present, already hurtling through our solar system.

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The Viking landers were the first spacecraft to land on Mars in the 1970s. Viking 1 and Viking 2 each had both an orbiter and a lander. On July 20, 1976 the Viking 1 Lander separated from the Orbiter and touched down on the surface of Mars. Less than two months later, on September 3, 1976, the Viking 2 lander touched down on Mars. These two landers took images of the Martian surface, studied soil samples, and studied the atmosphere of Mars.

Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun, and the seventh largest. It’s the only planet we know of inhabited entirely by robots.

All About Mars

Small World

Mars is 53% smaller than Earth.

Fourth Rock

Mars is 1.52 AU from the Sun. Earth = 1.

A Martian day is a little longer than Earth's; a Mars year is almost two Earth years.

Rocky Planet

Mars' surface has been altered by volcanoes, impacts, winds, and crustal movement.

Bring a Spacesuit

Mars' atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide, argon, and nitrogen.

Phobos and Deimos are small compared to the planet.

Mars has no rings.

Many Missions

The first success was NASA's Mariner 4 flyby in 1965,

The Search for Life

Missions are determining Mars' past and future potential for life.

The Red Planet

Iron minerals in the Martian soil oxidize, or rust, causing the soil and atmosphere to look red.

Mars Overview

Mars is no place for the faint-hearted. It’s dry, rocky, and bitter cold. The fourth planet from the Sun, Mars, is one of Earth's two closest planetary neighbors (Venus is the other). Mars is one of the easiest planets to spot in the night sky – it looks like a bright red point of light.

Despite being inhospitable to humans, robotic explorers – like NASA's Perseverance rover – are serving as pathfinders to eventually get humans to the surface of the Red Planet.

Why Do We Go?

Mars is one of the most explored bodies in our solar system, and it's the only planet where we've sent rovers to explore the alien landscape. NASA missions have found lots of evidence that Mars was much wetter and warmer, with a thicker atmosphere, billions of years ago.

Mars Relay Network

How we explore.

Mars 2020: Perseverance Rover

The Mars 2020 mission Perseverance rover is the first step of a proposed roundtrip journey to return Mars samples to Earth.

Mars Sample Return

NASA and ESA (European Space Agency) are planning ways to bring the first samples of Mars material back to Earth for detailed study. 

Mars Curiosity Rover (Mars Science Laboratory)

Curiosity is investigating Mars to determine whether the Red Planet was ever habitable to microbial life.

Mars Resources

View the one-stop shop for all Mars iconic images, videos, and more!

News & Features

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NASA Technology Grants to Advance Moon to Mars Space Exploration

NASA Selects Commercial Service Studies to Enable Mars Robotic Science

NASA Scientists Gear Up for Solar Storms at Mars

Major Martian Milestones

Beyond the Moon

Humans to mars.

Like the Moon, Mars is a rich destination for scientific discovery and a driver of technologies that will enable humans to travel and explore far from Earth.

Mars remains our horizon goal for human exploration because it is one of the only other places we know in the solar system where life may have existed. What we learn about the Red Planet will tell us more about our Earth’s past and future, and may help answer whether life exists beyond our home planet.

Discover More Topics From NASA

Mariner 4 Anniversary Marks 30 Years of Mars Exploration 

Three decades after Mariner 4's flyby of Mars on July 14, 1965 -- the first spacecraft ever to reach the planet and take close-up photographs of the Martian surface -- NASA is preparing a whole new decade of Mars missions that will rely on revolutionary new technologies and smaller, cheaper, faster spacecraft to continue robotic exploration of the Red Planet.

Kicking off this new decade of discovery are two missions scheduled for launch in the fall of 1996: Mars Global Surveyor, an orbiter to map the surface and atmosphere of the planet; and Mars Pathfinder, a Discovery program mission designed to deliver a lander, camera and instrumented rover to the Martian surface on July 4, 1997.

As NASA prepares for these missions, the community is also celebrating the roots of Mars exploration, which reach back 30 years to one tense day in the summer of 1965 at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

It was on July 14, 1965, that scientists and engineers waited anxiously for radio signals from NASA's Mariner 4 spacecraft, near Mars, to tell them that the spacecraft was successfully photographing the Red Planet close up for the very first time. With a round-trip communication time of 24 minutes, they could not remotely control the spacecraft. Mariner 4 was following a primitive onboard computer program and a sequence that engineers had started earlier that morning.

The signal arrived at the communication site at Goldstone, Calif., right on schedule at 5:30 p.m. Pacific Time. After 26 minutes of television recording, slightly more than 21 pictures filled the recording tape. The camera was switched off and Mariner's other instruments came on again to monitor the space environment around Mars. A few minutes later, the spacecraft flew within 10,000 kilometers (more than 6,000 miles) of Mars, then continued on its course to become one more object orbiting the Sun.

Mariner 4's flight past Mars was just the second successful interplanetary mission in history for the U.S. space program, preceded by Mariner 2's flight to Venus in 1962. The Mariner 4 mission had been developed, built and tested at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in just two years time.

The Mariner team had to be ready for launch in November 1964 in order to reach Mars in July 1965, and the spacecraft could only weigh about 260 kilograms (575 pounds) in order to achieve the velocity needed to get to Mars.

With very little experience in interplanetary space travel, engineers did not have much of an idea about the space environment that Mariner 4 would encounter during its eight-month trip to Mars. The ability of the spacecraft and its parts to survive eight months in space was an open question -- one that only the mission itself would answer. The sheer distance alone -- nearly three times the range of the first interplanetary flight -challenged the telecommunication system. Even the precise location of Mars and the lighting conditions on its surface were unclear.

Mariner 4's sister ship, Mariner 3, was launched three weeks earlier, but was doomed when the launch rocket's nose fairing failed to jettison properly. This trapped the spacecraft and forced NASA, JPL and the contractor for the upper-stage rocket, Lockheed Corp., into a race to design and build a new fairing in time to launch the second spacecraft while the Earth and Mars were still in proper alignment with each other.

They won the race. Mariner 4 lifted off Earth on an Atlas/Agena rocket on November 27, 1964. After about a week of radio tracking on the way to Mars, the spacecraft was commanded to perform a rocket-thrust maneuver, refining its course toward Mars. Then it coasted the rest of the way.

Throughout its flight the spacecraft kept its four solar panels oriented toward the Sun to generate electric power to run its equipment and keep the battery charged. It kept up a constant two-way communication link with the Earth, providing for radar based navigation and the receipt of commands from the ground, as well as sending science data to six teams of scientists and engineering health and performance measurements to engineers.

Between February and June 1965, Mariner 4 detected the effects of five separate solar flares, significant increases in the solar wind and its spiral flow of charged particles from the Sun. These events showed up in the magnetometer, several charged particle sensors and the cosmic-ray telescope. During the flight to Mars, the cosmic dust detector indicated an irregular increase in the number of micrometeorites, counting a total of about 200 particles.

Seven and a half months after launch the spacecraft approached Mars. On command it switched from "cruise science," carried out during the flight, to "encounter science," the observations of Mars. Another command aimed the camera and seven hours later a Mars detector started the camera shutter clicking. After recording its pictures, the spacecraft passed behind Mars and its radio signal faded into silence for nearly an hour. Scientists measuring the fadeout and return of the radio signal were able to measure the ionosphere and atmospheric density of Mars, similar to the way astronomers measure planetary atmospheres through the fading of starlight.

The next day, Mariner 4 began more than a week of playback of the recorded pictures of Mars. Very slowly the cratered, cold, hostile new world crept into view. Interpreting the dim gray of the Martian images was made far easier by a new photographic tool: the computer.

Taken for granted today, digital imaging and image processing were the state of the art in the early 1960's. In fact, scientists developed image processing to help solve the anticipated difficulties in reproducing pictures of Mars taken by spacecraft, though the technique was first tested on spacecraft pictures of the Moon. Removing "noise" on the image from spacecraft circuits and the space environment, and smoothly improving the contrast of the dim Martian scenes were just the beginning of an art that now pervades medical, forensic, scientific and commercial images.

Looking at the densely packed craters in the image of the small swatch of the Martian plains, the Mariner scientists could hardly believe that almost no Earth-based astronomers had predicted that Mars might resemble Earth's Moon. But the impact craters were the dominant features of the scenery. Small craters lay on the rims of large ones and scientists judged that the topography was very old and little changed in contrast to Earth.

No mountains, valleys, ocean basins or canals were visible. The first picture revealed the edge or limb of the planet. Image processing brought out an atmospheric haze above the horizon. The last few pictures were dark, showing the night side of Mars, but just before the edge of night, what appeared to be frost glistened on crater rims.

The Mariner 4 atmospheric team estimated the Martian surface pressure to be 4 millibars to 7 millibars, compared to about 1,000 millibars on Earth. That made the air on Mars about 150 to 200 times thinner than on Earth. They concluded that it was mostly carbon dioxide. Other instruments searched in vain for indications of an Earth-like magnetic field or radiation belts.

After the Mars encounter and playback were finished, the spacecraft resumed its observations of the interplanetary environment. However, Mariner 4 and Earth soon moved in their orbits so that telemetry could no longer be detected. In 1967 the spacecraft returned to the vicinity of Earth, approaching as close as 29 million miles, and sent back data from a few months of solar wind and solar flare measurements. On December 20, 1967, after three years in flight, Mariner 4 finally ran out of the propellant used to turn and orient it, thereby ending the first mission to Mars in U.S. space exploration history.

See Mars like never before in this amazing new photo from a 20-year-old probe

Celebrate 20 years of the Mars Express spacecraft with this incredible view of the Red Planet.

A stunning new image shows Mars in an entirely new light, revealing intricate details of the Martian surface.

The image was released to commemorate 20 years of the European Space Agency's (ESA) Mars Express spacecraft. Since the Mars Express entered orbit around Mars on Christmas Day 2003, the orbiter has been snapping images of the Martian surface from an altitude of around 186 miles (300 kilometers), the closest the spacecraft comes to the Red Planet. This results in images that are around 31 miles (50 kilometers) wide. 

This new mosaic was created using a slightly different method, however, using data collected by the spacecraft's High-Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) . The mosaic was built from 90 images the HRSC snapped while its ride was higher above Mars in its elliptical orbit. From altitudes between 2,500 miles (4,000 kilometers) to 31,000 miles (50,000 kilometers) over the Martian surface, HRSC can capture images that are around 1,550 miles (2,500 kilometers) wide. While these high-altitude images are typically taken to help observe weather patterns over Mars , they can also provide a full global view that reveals unprecedented details of the planet when united.

Related: Mars: Everything you need to know about the Red Planet

Despite its infamous moniker, the new mosaic image of the Red Planet shows it in a multitude of colors, providing a far richer color view of the planet than ever before.

This effect is far more than just aesthetic, however, as each hue offers planetary scientists information about the surface composition of the planet. 

Mars' infamous reddish coloration is the result of oxidized iron, but this image also shows dark and even blue regions. These are the result of volcanic activity depositing grey-black basaltic sands on the Martian surface, creating wide-spread dark layers of sand. As the winds of Mars move these dark sands, they pile up, creating large sand dunes and dune fields when caught in craters left by asteroid impacts.

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The mosaic also shows lighter and even white regions across the surface of the Red Planet, which are the result of rocks being altered and weathered by water far back in the ancient history of the now arid planet. Particularly bright are water-weathered clay and sulfate minerals, the presence of which was confirmed by another instrument aboard the Mars Express, the Omega Spectrometer, in August 2022.

Sulfate minerals are visible in the image within a Mars canyon system called Valles Marineris that stretches across the Martian surface east of the Tharsis region for over 2,500 miles (4,000 kilometers). These poke out as white specks and smears through a darker covering of basaltic sands. Sulfate deposits like this indicate they water-weathering in more acidic conditions than would have been found in regions clay deposits, implying regions of Mars that even in its watery past would have been less hospitable to life. 

 —  Valles Marineris: Facts About the Grand Canyon of Mars

 —  Mars helicopter Ingenuity went silent for 6 'agonizing' days in April

 —  UAE to land a probe on an asteroid between Mars and Jupiter in 2034

The mosaic is a striking example of the tremendous impact that the Mars Express has had on science since it first entered orbit around the Red Planet exactly two decades ago this year. 

This is even more striking when considering that the ESA mission was initially only set to operate for one Martian year, equivalent to 687 Earth days. The lifetime of the Mars Express mission has been extended to last until at least 2026, meaning that the HRSC camera has plenty of time to deliver more stunning images of the planet. 

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: [email protected].

Robert Lea is a science journalist in the U.K. whose articles have been published in Physics World, New Scientist, Astronomy Magazine, All About Space, Newsweek and ZME Science. He also writes about science communication for Elsevier and the European Journal of Physics. Rob holds a bachelor of science degree in physics and astronomy from the U.K.’s Open University. Follow him on Twitter @sciencef1rst.

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Why the US can't send humans to Mars

• Humans have long imagined life on Mars , though our understanding of the planet has changed a lot.
• Some of the US's earliest plans assumed humans could reach the Red Planet by the 1980s.
• Over the decades, technology and funding challenges have hampered the nation's hopes of crewed flights.

Earlier this month, NASA announced it was funding a revolutionary high-thrust rocket — called a Pulsed Plasma Rocket — that could make crewed missions to Mars in just two months.

That's seven months faster than it'd take with current technology, and it would drastically reduce the risk and cost of a crewed Mars mission, according to Howe Industries, which is developing the concept. It "holds the potential to revolutionize space exploration," NASA said in a statement.

The PPR is just one of the latest developments in the US's decadeslong discussion to send humans to Mars . In the early '60s, for example, nuclear-bomb-powered spaceships were proposed for the trip.

Since well before NASA landed the first humans on the moon, the US has poured money and time into proposals for a crewed Mars mission , only to see its attempts never leave the ground. But technology isn't the only thing standing in the way. Politics also plays a big role .

"That's kind of like a joke within the space community or the Mars community," Matthew Shindell, a curator with the National Air and Space Museum, told Business Insider. "Putting humans on Mars is always 20 years away."

He said it was short enough to seem tangible but long enough that the political situation would change before it could be realized.

To fully understand why the US hasn't sent humans to Mars despite sending more robots there than any other country, it just takes a trip down memory lane. Here's a history of the US's most promising crewed Martian missions that never were.

1950s: The Mars Project

In the '40s and '50s, no one really knew what they might find on Mars, but they knew getting there would be tricky. One of the first to seriously tackle the problem was Wernher von Braun.

During World War II , von Braun was a member of the Nazi party and created V-2 missiles . After the war, he continued his work on missiles with the US Army as part of Operation Paperclip while also working on a novel called "The Mars Project." In it, he laid out the first detailed plan to send humans to the Red Planet.

He envisioned a 260-day mission that would launch in 1985 with 10 spaceships and 70 crew members. "He sat down and did the math and created a whole story around it," Shindell said.

In the late '50s, von Braun consulted on NASA's very first 10-year plan, which included sending the first probes to Mars. (Sending humans to Mars would come later.) What started as fiction got closer to reality when von Braun started working at NASA a couple of years later.

1960s: Mars by 1965

In the late 1950s, Theodore Taylor, who worked on nuclear weapons at Los Alamos , and the theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson embarked on an ambitious plan to build a nuclear-explosion-powered spaceship.

Named Project Orion, the resulting ship would take 12 years to develop, cost $100 million a year, and comfortably hold 150 people. Their motto was "Mars by 1965, Saturn by 1970." But NASA was concerned about what would happen if any of the hundreds of bombs required to fuel the rocket exploded.

By 1963, the team was having trouble getting increased funding. That same year, the Limited Test Ban Treaty was signed, hampering the team's ability to test its vehicle.

The project was canceled a year later.

1965: Mars' first close-up

Though NASA was feverishly working toward the moon in the '60s, it didn't fully abandon its plans for Mars.

In 1962, the German rocket scientist Ernst Stuhlinger was working at NASA on a project to get five crewed ships to the Red Planet by the early 1980s.

Stuhlinger's planned ships were huge, almost 500 feet long. For comparison, NASA's Space Shuttles are under 200 feet. But as NASA raced to land the first humans on the moon, it shifted focus to smaller, lighter spacecraft. This helped speed things along toward the moon, but it was a step back for Mars.

This pivot "reduced Apollo's utility as a technological stepping stone to Mars," David S. F. Portree wrote in "Humans to Mars: Fifty Years of Mission Planning, 1950-2000."

In the meantime, NASA knew it needed more information about Mars before it landed humans there. So, in 1964, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory launched the very first probe to fly by Mars: Mariner 4 .

The images the probe transmitted to Earth were fuzzy and showed a desolate, barren planet. But they were the first close-up images of Mars's surface that anyone on Earth had seen.

1970s: The post-Apollo plans

NASA had just landed the first people on the moon in 1969 as part of its Apollo Program and was ready for the next big step. That same year, a Space Task Group appointed by President Richard Nixon issued a report that supported human flights to Mars in 1982.

But Nixon ignored most of the 1969 report's suggestions in favor of what would become the Space Shuttle program , which didn't involve going to Mars. It was a turning point for NASA.

During the height of the Apollo era, NASA didn't have to compete for funding, Shindell said. Now, Nixon's administration started cutting its budget.

This was during the Vietnam War , and many Americans wanted the government to focus on poverty, the environment, and other domestic issues.

"If you're a proponent of human Mars exploration, this is the problem you've faced ever since the 1970s," Shindell said. Sending humans to the moon was already incredibly expensive, and it's a lot closer than Mars.

1980s: Sally Ride's report

In 1985, President Ronald Reagan appointed the National Commission on Space to envision the next 50 years of space travel, which involved the possibility of piloted vehicles to Mars.

But then NASA's Space Shuttle Challenger exploded. The disaster affected how the agency thought about human space travel as a whole.

"In general, there was a great deal of soul-searching within NASA about the use of expensive and risky human-rated launch vehicles like the shuttle," William Sheehan and Jim Bell wrote in "Discovering Mars: A History of Observation and Exploration of the Red Planet."

Just a year later, though, NASA's administrator tasked the astronaut Sally Ride with laying out the agency's future space explorations. In her report, she explained what it would take for the US to land an astronaut on Mars by 2005.

To meet that timeline, NASA would need to triple its current budget in the next decade. That didn't happen.

1989: 20 years to Mars

By 1989, a crewed mission to Mars seemed back on the table, according to a speech by the newly elected president, George H.W. Bush.

" Why Mars?" he asked. "Because it is humanity's destiny to strive, to seek, to find. And because it is America's destiny to lead."

NASA's response was the Space Exploration Initiative, an analysis of Bush's space-exploration goals, which would cost an estimated $400 billion to $500 billion.

At that point, Mars was still a long way off. The missions weren't expected to begin until after 2010.

But Sheehan and Bell said a lack of congressional funding and political support led to the demise of Bush's Martian mission a few years later in 1993.

1990s: "Better, faster, cheaper"

By the 1990s, Mars enthusiasts were dreaming of getting humans there by the end of the millennium. The aerospace engineer Robert Zubrin formed the Mars Society, an advocacy group pushing for the planet's exploration and eventually establishing a human settlement there.

NASA was meanwhile trying to figure out how to study Mars after losing contact with the robotic probe Mars Observer in 1993. With so much still unknown about the planet, uncrewed missions continued to be the focus.

The agency's new administrator, Daniel Goldin, was pursuing a new mantra for the robotic missions: "better, faster, cheaper."

This decade saw success with the uncrewed Pathfinder and Mars Global Surveyor missions. Pathfinder delivered Sojourner, the first operational Mars rover, while MGS sent back incredible images and data from the planet .

Just a couple of years later, though, NASA lost two more uncrewed spacecraft, the Mars Polar Lander and the Mars Climate Orbiter.

2000s: But first, the moon

Despite the setbacks of the Polar Lander and MCO, NASA again had success in 2004 with rovers Spirit and Opportunity .

Though NASA had recently suffered another tragedy with the loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia and its crew in 2003, the agency's rovers seemed to reignite some of the desire for human missions to Mars.

In 2004, 15 years after his father's space speech, President George W. Bush announced what would become the Constellation Program. The ultimate goal was to put people on Mars, though there was no exact date given for this part of the plan.

A large part of Bush's vision involved returning to the moon before heading to the Red Planet. In 2010, President Barack Obama canceled Constellation but set a timeline of getting astronauts to Mars by the 2030s.

2010s: Mars goes commercial

In the 2010s, private space companies — such as SpaceX — started planning projects to get crews to Mars.

SpaceX's founder, Elon Musk, said in 2016 that he'd get people there in less than a decade . He later revised the date to 2029 with robust colonization by 2050.

So far, SpaceX hasn't sent anything to Mars.

President Donald Trump meanwhile reversed the Obama administration's space-exploration plans. NASA was again planning for a moon-first agenda .

Established in 2017 under the Trump Administration, NASA's Artemis Program is its latest and current mission for crewed deep-space exploration. It aims to return humans to the moon and create a lunar space station where astronauts can live for weeks or months at a time.

But this moon-first agenda doesn't completely rule out Mars. Dayna Ise, who leads NASA's Mars Campaign Office, said it would actually help us get to the Red Planet.

"You learn a lot by going to the moon, but you learn even more by staying at the moon," she said. "And so whatever we learn there will help with Mars."

She also said private space companies had a role to play. "It's all hands on deck," she said. "It is such a difficult engineering problem that we cannot exclude anybody from helping."

2020s: Simulating life on Mars

The private space companies have been busy this decade. This year, SpaceX had its first mostly successful Starship launch after several fiery attempts. The mega-rocket is set to play a huge role in Musk's plans to colonize Mars.

The Biden Administration has meanwhile continued to support the Artemis lunar missions. There have been a few setbacks, though.

Citing safety and technical challenges, NASA recently pushed back its first crewed Artemis mission to the moon, which is now scheduled for 2025.

Artemis IV, NASA's mission to deliver part of a lunar space station to the moon, is still scheduled for 2028.

Ise said having a long-term presence on the moon would help experts learn more about how crews could survive on a different world for longer than a few days.

The agency is also studying how people will fare in isolation. NASA's CHAPEA missions put volunteers in a simulated Mars habitat for a year. The "analog astronauts" follow strict schedules, have limited contact with loved ones, and are closely monitored. The first crew is set to emerge from the habitat this year on July 6.

2030s and beyond: Getting humans to Mars

Despite its moon-first agenda, NASA knows Mars has its own challenges that the lunar surface can't prepare them for. In addition to taking a lot of time and fuel to get there, the trip is expected to result in communication delays of at least 20 minutes between the crew and Earth.

Ise said the travelers would need to be able to take care of their own health emergencies and fix hardware issues. But NASA is also working on making some systems more autonomous . "If there is an issue, they don't have time to troubleshoot with someone on the ground to fix their life support system," she said. "So we need those life support systems to be smarter."

Other problems include keeping the crew safe from radiation, dealing with the planet's skin-irritating dust, and developing a food source . "We have to build an ecology inside a transit vehicle to keep everyone alive and healthy," Ise said.

All that will take time. NASA's administrator, Bill Nelson, has said there's potential for the agency to send humans to Mars by 2040 . Ise compared it to eating an entire elephant. "We're doing it one bite at a time and building on everything that we learn," she said.

It remains to be seen whether private US companies will reach Mars first.

Correction — May 28, 2024: An earlier version of this story misstated Virgin Galactic's space exploration goals. Virgin Galactic has not announced plans to send robots or humans to Mars.

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Watch Mars ‘livestream’ by the European Space Agency – latest updates

The European Space Agency is about to attempt the first ever livestream from another planet - although the distance from Earth to Mars means there will be a short delay in broadcasting

By Matthew Sparkes

2 June 2023

A live video feed will be broadcast from Mars for the first time beginning at 1600 UTC today, using a once-obsolete camera aboard the European Space Agency’s Mars Express Orbiter.

ESA’s feed, embedded above, will last for an hour. However, because of the vast distance between Earth and Mars, the images will take 17 minutes to reach us, and a further minute to pass through various receivers and servers on the ground, making it not quite “live”.

The orbiter’s Visual Monitoring Camera (VMC) will transmit a new frame every 50 seconds. This camera normally stores the images it takes and transmits them in a batch every couple of days, so this is the first time ESA is attempting to stream them as they are taken.

The event has been put on to mark the 20th birthday of ESA’s Mars Express, the mission that placed the Mars Express Orbiter in orbit around the planet and deployed the ill-fated Beagle 2 lander .

Despite the failure of Beagle 2 to ever communicate with Earth after reaching the surface, the orbiter became Europe’s first mission to another planet and continues to operate today in an elliptical orbit of between around 300 and 10,000 kilometres.

Read more: The Perseverance rover runs on processors used in iMacs in the 1990s

James Godfrey at ESA said in a statement that there is no guarantee that the stream will go according to plan. “This is an old camera, originally planned for engineering purposes, at a distance of almost three million kilometres from Earth – this hasn’t been tried before and to be honest, we’re not 100% certain it’ll work.”

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The VMC was originally designed to monitor the separation of the Beagle 2 lander and had been turned off after launch. But it was turned back on for science and outreach reasons in 2007 after more sophisticated image-processing techniques were developed that made the relatively simple camera useful once again.

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Melissa L. Gaskill

Tracking tiny stowaways, getting there and back, refining radiation detection, robot helpers.

Space, the saying goes, is hard. And the farther humans go, the harder it can get.

Some of the challenges on missions to explore the Moon and Mars include preventing microbial contamination of these destinations, navigating there safely, protecting crew members and hardware from radiation, and maintaining and repairing equipment.

Research on the International Space Station is helping NASA scientists develop tools and processes to ensure success on these important missions. Here are highlights from some of the investigations making space a little easier.

Bacteria and fungi live in and on all humans and all around us on Earth. Most of these microorganisms are beneficial or harmless but introducing them to other celestial bodies could adversely affect our ability to study ecosystems on those other worlds.

Crew members will conduct a spacewalk to collect samples near space station life support system vents for ISS External Microorganisms , an investigation to assess whether the orbiting laboratory releases microorganisms into space. Results could provide insight into the potential for organisms to survive and reproduce in space and help researchers determine which microbes would most likely contaminate other planetary bodies visited by crewed missions.

A miniature, hand-held digital microscope designed to make in-flight medical diagnoses, the Moon Microscope , also can test water, food, and surfaces for contamination. The device images samples at high resolution and processes data on web-enabled devices such as phones or tablets. Multiple users can access the microscope simultaneously, and some applications run autonomously.

Spacecraft must have sophisticated high-tech systems for navigating. Sextant Navigation tests the function of sextants in microgravity as an emergency backup navigation technique for Artemis and other future exploration missions. These mechanical devices have guided navigators for centuries, and Gemini and Apollo missions demonstrated they were useful for astronauts.

Missions beyond low Earth orbit increase exposure to radiation, which can pose a hazard to human health and interfere with equipment operation. As NASA prepares for future missions, providing adequate protection is vital.

The Hybrid Electronic Radiation Assessor, or HERA, was built to serve as a primary radiation detection system for the Orion spacecraft, which will carry crews into orbit around the Moon. The International Space Station Hybrid Electronic Radiation Assessor investigation modified the system to operate on the space station to provide researchers input for use on future exploration missions.

Artemis HERA on Space Station further modified the radiation detection system so researchers could continue to evaluate the hardware in the space radiation environment prior to Artemis II.

Active-Dosimeters , an investigation led by ESA (European Space Agency), tested a wearable system to measure radiation exposure to crew members on the space station and how it changes with the station’s orbit and altitude. Data from the wearable dosimeter improved radiation risk assessments and could lead to better protection for astronauts, including the ability to quickly respond to changes in exposure throughout future exploration missions.

On future exploration missions, robotic technology can help crew members with basic tasks, monitor and maintain equipment, and conduct operations such as sample collection, reducing the need to expose astronauts to harsh environments. Integrated System for Autonomous and Adaptive Caretaking demonstrates using autonomous robots to transfer and unpack cargo and to track and respond to maintenance issues such as leaks and fires, which could protect valuable equipment and reduce costly repairs on future missions. The investigation uses the space station’s Astrobee and Robonaut robots.

Multi-Resolution Scanning uses the station’s Astrobees to test sensors and robotics to support automated 3D sensing, mapping, and situational awareness functions. On future Gateway and lunar surface missions, such systems could automatically detect defects and conduct remote maintenance and autonomous operation of vehicles such as rovers.

Surface Avatar evaluates crew operation of multiple autonomous robots in space. The investigation also assesses crew member responsiveness to feedback on the consoles used to operate robots remotely, which supports design of effective setups for operating robots on the ground from a spacecraft orbiting above. Results contribute to the development of other uses of robotic assistance such as returning samples from Mars and asteroids.

Melissa Gaskill International Space Station Research Communications Team NASA’s Johnson Space Center

Search this database of scientific experiments to learn more about those mentioned above.

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Related Terms

• ISS Research
• Cell and Molecular Biology
• Human Research Program
• International Space Station (ISS)
• Johnson Space Center
• Microbiology
• Science & Research