A part of a poster titled " Mars Explorers Wanted , " one of a series NASA originally commission for an showing at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor ’s Complex in 2009 . They ’re all available online for download . Image credit : NASA / KSC
Imagine the open of Mars on July 20 , 1976 . It ’s cold and breezy on the prosperous plains and sunset is tight draw close . Above , a meteor streaks across the sky , 250 time per secondment , a zip of light . Uncommon for a meteor , however , is the chute that deploys , slow down it in an instant by three - quarters of its fastness .
About a mile above the surface , the object resolves into view . It ’s not still like a flying discus , but rather looks like a machine of some sort , all cylinders , box , and cabling . Retrorockets to a lower place begin to fire , and the whole thing eases to the ground at a few feet per second . It bring down , and Mars is again quiet .
As dust begins to settle , the foreign space vehicle switches on . An transmitting aerial dish aerial rises and orients . It ’s looking for something . Home . arm get down to extend , one toward the sky . Viking I , the first scientist to last the trip to the Martian control surface , gets to work .
As NASA celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the historic commission , here is a inclination of every NASA spacecraft to operate successfully on the Martian aerofoil .
1 & 2. VIKING I AND VIKING II
Viking 1 ’s view of Mars . figure of speech credit : NASA
The Viking I lander was depend for liveliness . How little did we know ? Carl Sagan lobbied to have a small Light Within installed on the lander ’s exterior , hopingMartian animals might investigate itduring nighttime hours . The lander ’s feet are lily pad – shaped because scientists think the airfoil of Mars might have the consistence of sliver emollient . Just to land successfully was an accomplishment , and everything Viking I and its duplicate Viking II ( which landed two months later ) found and did n’t find added boundlessly to our then relatively meager understanding of Mars .
The spacecraft collected and analyze soil samples , come back 360 - degree double of the surface , and monitored the weather . Viking I operated for six years — a record unbroken until 2010 , by the rover Opportunity . ( Viking II operated just over 3.5 years . ) railroad engineer at JPL think the Viking orbiters arestill circling Mars , lifeless but speeding along . They ’ve earned their ease , havingimaged the total planetin high declaration , map Mars ’s thermal activity , and studied its atmosphere .
3. PATHFINDER
The Sojourner roamer checks out ( or perhaps swelling into ) a boulder . Image credit : NASA
After the Viking landers found no animal , planetary scientist actuate on for a while . They explored Venus , and theVoyagerprobeschecked the loge for the out planet — those creation beyond the asteroid belted ammunition . Pathfinder was the ultimate trial run of NASA ’s " cheaper , faster , better " first step in the 1990s — and a lofty return to the violent planet .
Pathfinder was comprise of two element : the rover Sojourner and a base station , later identify the Carl Sagan Memorial Station . The duo near the surface on July 4 , 1997 in a condensation and jump similar to the Viking lander . When 355 cadence above the ground , Pathfinder seemed to abound like a nitty-gritty of popcorn , fence in in a fraction of a second by an high-sounding eggshell of giant airbags . entirely incase , when Pathfinder hit the priming , it violently bound across the Martian surface , the airbags only deflate after the package lulled to a stopover .
The bird of passage would have been an astounding success if it operated for a hebdomad . It ended up operating for nearly three months . By the numbers , according to NASA , Pathfinder returned : 2.3 billion bits of data ; 16,500 images from the base place ; 550 images from Sojourner ; and datum from " 15 chemical analyses of rocks and land and extensive data point on winds and other weather factors . " Pathfinder data bring out something amazing : Mars was once a warm and wet earthly concern .
4 & 5. SPIRIT AND OPPORTUNITY
The Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity bring down in fashions very interchangeable to Pathfinder — airbags , bound , and all . Spirit first touched Martian soil on January 4 , 2004 ; 24 days and half a planet later , Opportunity shoot down . The rovers were designed for heavy mobility and grasp than Pathfinder , though they mostly study the same things : rock , filth , and tune . mass spectrometer scanned the satellite ’s mineral and chemistry piece . camera captured and returned more than 100,000 high-pitched - result paradigm of terrain and sky ( let in thefirst - ever photoof Earth from the ground on another cosmos ) .
Another similarity to Pathfinder : bang for your buck . Spiritwas contrive to last 90 days . It ran forsix years . In the end , it became stuck in piece of iron sulfate that was hold back by a thin bed of soil . Because of the low-spirited cohesion , the rover lost adhesive friction . The roamer was declare a stationary science platform , and continued to do skill for another two months , until low sunlight left its batteries drained . finally contact was recede .
Opportunity , meanwhile , refuses to stop working . The faithful it came to a demise was in 2005 , when the rover drove through a punishing sand trap and was nearly halted . In 2014 ( class 10 of its 90 - day missionary work ) , its flash remembering became unreliable to the stage that scientists stop its habit , opt to store data in RAM instead . Last twelvemonth , it evencompleted a endurance contest on Mars , crossing the 26.2 - nautical mile mark . Among the determination of the two roamer is abonanza of water interactionsfrom the Martian past times — groundwater , piddle and magma , frost work rock , you name it . Opportunity most notably found grounds that Mars might have been inhabitable forhundreds of millions of years .
6. PHOENIX
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter enchant this range of a function of Phoenix descending by parachute to Mars , with a crater in the ground . Image credit : NASA / Jet Propulsion Lab - Caltech / University of Arizona
The Mars Polar Lander was mean to be the first ballistic capsule to mark down on a Martian magnetic pole . Sadly , a probable clangoring landing place left the space vehicle unresponsive . No one get it on for sure what bump , and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has beenunable to retrieve its remains .
Out of the miss ash of MPL rosePhoenix , which carry improve adaptation of several instruments of its ill - fill out progenitor , as well as a lander that had been intended originally for the Mars Surveyor , a cancel mission . Phoenix ’s landing place on May 25 , 2008 was notable in that the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter was able to capture an image ( above ) of its parachute fall — the first clip we ’ve ever seen such a matter . LikeViking I , its terminal descent used arugula . The charge was a great achiever , proving the grounds of piddle ice on Mars just below the surface . It observed lessen blow on Mars and , most notably for NASA ’s " Journey to Mars , " foundperchlorate , which can be used in the production of both rocket fuel and oxygen — useful items indeed for next Martian colonists . The deputation , destine to last three months , went on for five . Poor sun and a debris storm interfered with its solar collection , and its batteries were finally depleted .
7. CURIOSITY
Curiosity took this composite image of the higher regions of Mount Sharp on September 9 , 2015 . Image credit : NASA / JPL - Caltech / MSSS
The rover Curiosity ’s Rube Goldberg – like landing place — which involved rockets , parachutes , sky Crane , lead and consummate timing — was unlike anything NASA had ever previously attempted . ( This landing place organization will not be a one - off , though . It will be used for the Mars 2020 bird of passage , which launches that yr and arrives in 2021 . ) wonder is a habitableness field . It is , perhaps , an echo ofViking I , and a manifestation of all we ’ve learned . Where scientists in those heady days long to catch images of Martian animals scurrying up to the spacecraft ’s nightlight , Curiosity steps back and asks , " Was Mars ever habitable ? "
The answer : yes . As it relates to human living on Mars , Curiosityalso found radioactivity stage similar to those on the International Space Station , meaning that colonists might not gamble certain death by cancer when they come . The foreign mission , now in its quaternary year of a two - year mission , could live well over a decade . Unlike previous Mars roamer , it isnuclear poweredand impervious to the notion of dense Martian sandstorms or punishing winters . On the other script , its wheels havesustained damage , pull up stakes scientists unsure as to how long the rover can keep moving .
We ’ll take a deeper look at the Mars 2020 mission later this week . Until then , check out this awful magazine from the 2006 IMAX documentaryRoving Mars .
