Opportunity, also known as MER-B or MER-1, is a robotic rover that was active on Mars from 2004 until 2018. Opportunity was operational on Mars for 5111 sols. Launched on July 7, 2003, as part of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover program, it landed in Meridiani Planum on January 25, 2004, three weeks after its twin, Spirit (MER-A), touched down on the other side of the planet. With a planned 90-sol duration of activity, Spirit functioned until it got stuck in 2009 and ceased communications in 2010, while Opportunity was able to stay operational for 5111 sols after landing, maintaining its power and key systems through continual recharging of its batteries using solar power, and hibernating during events such as dust storms to save power. This careful operation allowed Opportunity to operate for 57 times its designed lifespan, exceeding the initial plan by 14 years, 47 days. By June 10, 2018, when it last contacted NASA, the rover had traveled a distance of 45.16 kilometers.
Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) is a robotic space probe mission to Mars launched by NASA on November 26, 2011, which successfully landed Curiosity, a Mars rover, in Gale Crater on August 6, 2012. The overall objectives include investigating Mars' habitability, studying its climate and geology, and collecting data for a human mission to Mars. The rover carries a variety of scientific instruments designed by an international team.
The Astrobiology Field Laboratory (AFL) was a proposed NASA rover that would have conducted a search for life on Mars. This proposed mission, which was not funded, would have landed a rover on Mars in 2016 and explore a site for habitat. Examples of such sites are an active or extinct hydrothermal deposit, a dry lake or a specific polar site.
Mawrth Vallis is a valley on Mars, located in the Oxia Palus quadrangle at 22.3°N, 343.5°E with an elevation approximately two kilometers below datum. Situated between the southern highlands and northern lowlands, the valley is a channel formed by massive flooding which occurred in Mars’ ancient past. It is an ancient water outflow channel with light-colored clay-rich rocks.
inXitu was a company based in Mountain View, California, which developed portable X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analysis instruments. The company name was a combination of the terms in situ and X-ray, portraying the company's dedication to developing X-ray instruments that could be easily transported to the original site of the material being analyzed.
Martian soil is the fine regolith found on the surface of Mars. Its properties can differ significantly from those of terrestrial soil, including its toxicity due to the presence of perchlorates. The term Martian soil typically refers to the finer fraction of regolith. So far, no samples have been returned to Earth, the goal of a Mars sample-return mission, but the soil has been studied remotely with the use of Mars rovers and Mars orbiters.
The Aeolis quadrangle is one of a series of 30 quadrangle maps of Mars used by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Astrogeology Research Program. The Aeolis quadrangle is also referred to as MC-23 . The Aeolis quadrangle covers 180° to 225° W and 0° to 30° south on Mars, and contains parts of the regions Elysium Planitia and Terra Cimmeria. A small part of the Medusae Fossae Formation lies in this quadrangle.
The Mars Astrobiology Explorer-Cacher (MAX-C), also known as Mars 2018 mission, was a NASA concept for a Mars rover mission, proposed to be launched in 2018 together with the European ExoMars rover. The MAX-C rover concept was cancelled in April 2011 due to budget cuts.
The composition of Mars covers the branch of the geology of Mars that describes the make-up of the planet Mars.
Rosalind Franklin, previously known as the ExoMars rover, is a planned robotic Mars rover, part of the international ExoMars programme led by the European Space Agency and the Russian Roscosmos State Corporation. The mission was scheduled to launch in July 2020, but was postponed to 2022. The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has caused an indefinite delay of the programme, as the member states of the ESA voted to suspend the joint mission with Russia; in July 2022, ESA terminated its cooperation on the project with Russia. As of May 2022, the launch of the rover is not expected to occur before 2028 due to the need for a new non-Russian landing platform.
Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) is a suite of instruments on the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover. The SAM instrument suite will analyze organics and gases from both atmospheric and solid samples. It was developed by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, the Laboratoire des Atmosphères Milieux Observations Spatiales (LATMOS) associated to the Laboratoire Inter-Universitaire des Systèmes Atmosphériques (LISA), and Honeybee Robotics, along with many additional external partners.
Curiosity is a car-sized Mars rover exploring Gale crater and Mount Sharp on Mars as part of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission. Curiosity was launched from Cape Canaveral (CCAFS) on November 26, 2011, at 15:02:00 UTC and landed on Aeolis Palus inside Gale crater on Mars on August 6, 2012, 05:17:57 UTC. The Bradbury Landing site was less than 2.4 km (1.5 mi) from the center of the rover's touchdown target after a 560 million km (350 million mi) journey.
The Mars Science Laboratory and its rover, Curiosity, were launched from Earth on November 26, 2011. As of November 29, 2023, Curiosity has been on the planet Mars for 4022 sols since landing on August 6, 2012. (See Current status.)
Sojourner is a robotic Mars rover that landed in the Ares Vallis channel in the Chryse Planitia region of the Oxia Palus quadrangle on July 4, 1997. Sojourner was operational on Mars for 92 sols. It was the first wheeled vehicle to rove on a planet other than Earth and formed part of the Mars Pathfinder mission.
Rocknest is a sand patch on the surface of Aeolis Palus, between Peace Vallis and Aeolis Mons, in Gale crater on the planet Mars. The patch was encountered by the Curiosity rover on the way from Bradbury Landing to Glenelg Intrigue on September 28, 2012. The approximate site coordinates are: 4.59°S 137.44°E.
Yellowknife Bay is a geologic formation in Gale Crater on the planet Mars. NASA's Mars Science Laboratory rover, named Curiosity, arrived at the low lying depression on December 17, 2012, 125 sols, or Martian days, into its 668-sol planned mission on the planet. Primary mission goals of the Mars Science Laboratory were to assess the potential habitability of the planet and whether or not the Martian environment is, or has ever been, capable of supporting life.
Martian regolith simulant is a terrestrial material that is used to simulate the chemical and mechanical properties of Martian regolith for research, experiments and prototype testing of activities related to Martian regolith such as dust mitigation of transportation equipment, advanced life support systems and in-situ resource utilization.
Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals (SHERLOC) is an ultraviolet Raman spectrometer that uses fine-scale imaging and an ultraviolet (UV) laser to determine fine-scale mineralogy, and detect organic compounds designed for the Perseverance rover as part of the Mars 2020 mission. It was constructed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory with major subsystems being delivered from Malin Space Science Systems and Los Alamos National Laboratory. The Principal Investigator is Luther Beegle, and the Deputy Principal Investigator is Rohit Bhartia.
Astropedology is the study of very ancient paleosols and meteorites relevant to the origin of life and different planetary soil systems. It is a branch of soil science (pedology) concerned with soils of the distant geologic past and of other planetary bodies to understand our place in the universe. A geologic definition of soil is “a material at the surface of a planetary body modified in place by physical, chemical or biological processes”. Soils are sometimes defined by biological activity but can also be defined as planetary surfaces altered in place by biologic, chemical, or physical processes. By this definition, the question for Martian soils and paleosols becomes, were they alive? Astropedology symposia are a new focus for scientific meetings on soil science. Advancements in understanding the chemical and physical mechanisms of pedogenesis on other planetary bodies in part led the Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) in 2017 to update the definition of soil to: "The layer(s) of generally loose mineral and/or organic material that are affected by physical, chemical, and/or biological processes at or near the planetary surface and usually hold liquids, gases, and biota and support plants". Despite our meager understanding of extraterrestrial soils, their diversity may raise the question of how we might classify them, or formally compare them with our Earth-based soils. One option is to simply use our present soil classification schemes, in which case many extraterrestrial soils would be Entisols in the United States Soil Taxonomy (ST) or Regosols in the World Reference Base for Soil Resources (WRB). However, applying an Earth-based system to such dissimilar settings is debatable. Another option is to distinguish the (largely) biotic Earth from the abiotic Solar System, and include all non-Earth soils in a new Order or Reference Group, which might be tentatively called Astrosols.
Perseverance, nicknamed Percy, is a car-sized Mars rover designed to explore the Jezero crater on Mars as part of NASA's Mars 2020 mission. It was manufactured by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and launched on July 30, 2020, at 11:50 UTC. Confirmation that the rover successfully landed on Mars was received on February 18, 2021, at 20:55 UTC. As of 27 November 2023, Perseverance has been active on Mars for 985 sols since its landing. Following the rover's arrival, NASA named the landing site Octavia E. Butler Landing.
