-
The Mariner 4
The Mariner 4 was the fourth in a series of spacrafts designed for planetary exploration in a flyby mode. It was designed to conduct closeup scientific observations of Mars and to transmit these observations to Earth. The Mariner 4 was the fisrt succesful flyby of Mars,and it returned the first ever pictures of the martian surface to Earth. The Mariner 4 strongly changed the view of the scientific community on Mars -
Mariner 6
Althought the Mariner 6 used the same design as the previous mariner's, it included one main advantage, a rocket engine for telemetry corrections. This new technology on the Mariner 6 was a huge step in the exploration of Mars becase in addition to photography equipment it also carried instruments for planetary analysis. The images retrieved by the Mariner 6 and its technology were used to design the Viking lander. -
Mariner 7
The Mariner 7 was extremely similiar to its so called "Twin" the Mariner 6. The Mariner 7 especially made an impact on our view of Mars because, while observing Mars, the Mariner 7 discovered that Mars's moon Phobos was irregularly shaped. Despite the fact that that the Mariner 6 and 7 were so similiar, they both came back with different results. -
Lander Viking 1
The Viking Lander 1 was the fisrt of two Viking space crafts sent to Mars. Their primary mission objective was to get high resoloution pictures of Mars although the results ended up being much greater. The Lander Viking 1 ended up being the first american space craft to touch the surface of Mars, and the fisrt ever spacecraft to stay on Mars long term. -
Lander Viking 2
The Lander Viking 2 was a part of the American Viking program to Mars, and was almost identical to the Lander Viking 1. Unlike the Lander Viking 1 the Lander Viking 2 landed on a different Mars hemisphere and experimented there. Besides taking photographs the Lander Vikings also did multiple biology experiments on the Martian surface. -
The Mars Global Surveyor Orbiter
The Mars Global Surveyor Orbiter began the United States return to Mars after a ten year absence. The Orbiter retrieved more images than all the missions that came before it. The Orbiter completed its primary mission in 2001 although in 2006 the spacecraft failed to respond to messages. They later discovered that the spacecraft was on safe mode, although all attempts to solve the problem failed. Therefore, in 2007 Nasa officialy ended the program. -
Pathfinder (Rover)
The Mars Pathfinder was the first ever space probe sent to Mars that included a rover.The rover was used to do experiments on Mars's atmosphere, climate, geology, and the composition of its rocks and soils. The Pathfinder's mission was really to be a "Proof or concept" for many technologies such as the airbag mediated touchdown. The Pathfinder is significant because of its extremely low cost compared to other unmanned spacecrafts for Mars and the information it brought back. -
Mars Odyssey (Orbiter)
The Mars Odyssey is a robotic spacecraft orbiting the planet Mars to this day. Its mission is to use spectrometers and electronic imagers to help identify any evidence of past or present water and or volcanic activity on Mars. It was hoped that the data the Odyssey retrieved would answer the question if life has ever exsisted on Mars. The Odyssey had a special technique called "aerobraking" that brought the Odyssey closer to Mars with each orbit, -
Mars Express (Orbiter)
The Mars Express was Europe's first ever mission to another planet in the Solar System. It was mainly designed to study the geology, atmosphere, surface environment, history of water, and the potenital chance for life on Mars. The Mars Express succesfully used the Beagle 2 Lander, although shortly after contact was lost with the lander before touching the surface.The Mars Express is most famous for detecting evidence of the presence of liquid water throughout Maritan history, -
Spirit (Rover)
The Spirit was a robotic rover on Mars, and was active on the planet from 2004 to 2010. It was one of the two only rovers that were a part of Nasa's ongoing "Mars Exploration Rover Mission". The Spirit ended up acting effectively over double the ammount of time predicted by Nasa. Sadly in 2009 the Spirit got stuck in soft soil. After a year of observing the problem Nasa announced that although they had overcome other obstacles the rover seemed to be stuck, and they couldn't remove it. -
Oppurtunity (Rover)
The Oppurtunity is a robotic rover active on Mars since 2003. It landed on Mars three weeks after it's twin rover Spirit. Oppurtunity survived many dust-storms and reached both Vicotoria and Endeavour Crater. Unlike it's twin Spirit, the Oppurtunity has remained active since 2003.Oppurtunity has already succeded over it's 90 Sol (Martian day's) estimation of its so called "Life Range" prediciton, and by over 9 Earth years. -
Reconnaissance (Orbiter)
The Reconnaissance was a mulitpurpose spacecraft designed to conduct both reconnaissance and exploration of Mars from orbit. After five months, it entered its final orbit and joined 5 other spacecrafts that were either in orbit or on the planet surface. When this happened the Reconnaissance broke the record at the time for most operational spacecraft in the immediate vicinity of Mars. -
Pheonix (Lander)
The Pheonix was a robotic spacecraft on a space exploration mission to Mars. The Lander was used to search for enviorments suitable for Micorbial life, and for any detectiion of water. Pheonix was Nasa's six succesful landing out of seven attempts. Pheonix was also Nasa's first ever mission to land on a Polar Region of Mars, and the fisrt mission to Mars led by a public university. Although it was led specifically by the Universtiy of Arizona many Universities around the world participated. -
Curiosity (Rover)
Curiosity is a car sized robotic rover exploring Gale Crater, as a part of Nasa's Mars Science Labarotory mission. Curiosity was launched from the hisotrical site, Cape Canaveral and succesfully landed on Gale Crator almost a year later. The Rover's goals include the study of Martian climate and geology, the role of water on Mars, planetary habitability, and seeing if Gale crater has microbial life. The design of Curiosity is the basis for the planned unnamed 2020 Mars Rover Mission.
