The Mariner program was conducted by the American space agency NASA to explore other planets. Between 1962 and late 1973, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) designed and built 10 robotic interplanetary probes named Mariner to explore the inner Solar System - visiting the planets Venus, Mars and Mercury for the first time, and returning to Venus and Mars for additional close observations.
The Viking program consisted of a pair of identical American space probes, Viking 1 and Viking 2, which landed on Mars in 1976. The mission effort began in 1968 and was managed by the NASA Langley Research Center. Each spacecraft was composed of two main parts: an orbiter designed to photograph the surface of Mars from orbit, and a lander designed to study the planet from the surface. The orbiters also served as communication relays for the landers once they touched down.
Viking 1 was the first of two spacecraft, along with Viking 2, each consisting of an orbiter and a lander, sent to Mars as part of NASA's Viking program. The lander touched down on Mars on July 20, 1976, the first successful Mars lander in history. Viking 1 operated on Mars for 2,307 days or 2245 Martian solar days, the longest Mars surface mission until the record was broken by the Opportunity rover on May 19, 2010.
The Mars 2 was an uncrewed space probe of the Mars program, a series of uncrewed Mars landers and orbiters launched by the Soviet Union beginning 19 May 1971. The Mars 2 and Mars 3 missions consisted of identical spacecraft, each with an orbiter and an attached lander. The orbiter is identical to the Venera 9 bus. The type of bus/orbiter is the 4MV. They were launched by a Proton-K heavy launch vehicle with a Blok D upper stage. The lander of Mars 2 became the first human-made object to reach the surface of Mars, although the landing system failed and the lander was lost.
Mars 3 was a robotic space probe of the Soviet Mars program, launched May 28, 1971, nine days after its twin spacecraft Mars 2. The probes were identical robotic spacecraft launched by Proton-K rockets with a Blok D upper stage, each consisting of an orbiter and an attached lander. After the Mars 2 lander crashed on the Martian surface, the Mars 3 lander became the first spacecraft to attain a soft landing on Mars, on December 2, 1971. It failed 110 seconds after landing, having transmitted only a gray image with no details. The Mars 2 orbiter and Mars 3 orbiter continued to circle Mars and transmit images back to Earth for another eight months.
A lander is a spacecraft that descends towards, then comes to rest on the surface of an astronomical body other than Earth. In contrast to an impact probe, which makes a hard landing that damages or destroys the probe upon reaching the surface, a lander makes a soft landing after which the probe remains functional.
Venera 3 was a Venera program space probe that was built and launched by the Soviet Union to explore the surface of Venus. It was launched on 16 November 1965 at 04:19 UTC from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, USSR. The probe comprised an entry probe, designed to enter the Venus atmosphere and parachute to the surface, and a carrier/flyby spacecraft, which carried the entry probe to Venus and also served as a communications relay for the entry probe.
The Beagle 2 is an inoperative British Mars lander that was transported by the European Space Agency's 2003 Mars Express mission. It was intended to conduct an astrobiology mission that would have looked for evidence of past life on Mars.
The Mars Climate Orbiter was a robotic space probe launched by NASA on December 11, 1998, to study the Martian climate, Martian atmosphere, and surface changes and to act as the communications relay in the Mars Surveyor '98 program for Mars Polar Lander. However, on September 23, 1999, communication with the spacecraft was permanently lost as it went into orbital insertion. The spacecraft encountered Mars on a trajectory that brought it too close to the planet, and it was either destroyed in the atmosphere or escaped the planet's vicinity and entered an orbit around the Sun. An investigation attributed the failure to a measurement mismatch between two software systems: metric units by NASA and US customary units by spacecraft builder Lockheed Martin.
The Mars Polar Lander, also known as the Mars Surveyor '98 Lander, was a 290-kilogram robotic spacecraft lander launched by NASA on January 3, 1999, to study the soil and climate of Planum Australe, a region near the south pole on Mars. It formed part of the Mars Surveyor '98 mission. On December 3, 1999, however, after the descent phase was expected to be complete, the lander failed to reestablish communication with Earth. A post-mortem analysis determined the most likely cause of the mishap was premature termination of the engine firing prior to the lander touching the surface, causing it to strike the planet at a high velocity.
Mars Surveyor '98 was a mission in NASA's Mars Exploration Program that launched the Mars Climate Orbiter and the Mars Polar Lander to the planet Mars. The mission was to study the Martian weather, climate, water and carbon dioxide (CO2) budget, to understand the reservoirs, behavior, and atmospheric role of volatiles and to search for evidence of long-term and episodic climate changes. The Mars Polar Lander also carried two surface-penetrator probes for the New Millennium Program's Deep Space 2 mission. Both spacecraft were launched in 1998 and both were lost.
The Phobos program was an unmanned space mission consisting of two probes launched by the Soviet Union to study Mars and its moons Phobos and Deimos. Phobos 1 was launched on 7 July 1988, and Phobos 2 on 12 July 1988, each aboard a Proton-K rocket.
The planet Mars has been explored remotely by spacecraft. Probes sent from Earth, beginning in the late 20th century, have yielded a large increase in knowledge about the Martian system, focused primarily on understanding its geology and habitability potential. Engineering interplanetary journeys is complicated and the exploration of Mars has experienced a high failure rate, especially the early attempts. Roughly sixty percent of all spacecraft destined for Mars failed before completing their missions and some failed before their observations could begin. Some missions have been met with unexpected success, such as the twin Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, which operated for years beyond their specification.
Nozomi was a Japanese Mars orbiter that failed to reach Mars due to electrical failure. It was constructed by the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, University of Tokyo and launched on July 4, 1998, at 03:12 JST with an on-orbit dry mass of 258 kg and 282 kg of propellant. The Nozomi mission was terminated on December 31, 2003.
Mars 96 was a failed Mars mission launched in 1996 to investigate Mars by the Russian Space Forces and not directly related to the Soviet Mars probe program of the same name. After failure of the second fourth-stage burn, the probe assembly re-entered the Earth's atmosphere, breaking up over a 320 km (200 mi) long portion of the Pacific Ocean, Chile, and Bolivia. The Mars 96 spacecraft was based on the Phobos probes launched to Mars in 1988. They were of a new design at the time and both ultimately failed. For the Mars 96 mission the designers believed they had corrected the flaws of the Phobos probes, but the value of their improvements was never demonstrated due to the destruction of the probe during the launch phase.
Phoenix was an uncrewed space probe that landed on the surface of Mars on May 25, 2008, and operated until November 2, 2008. Phoenix was operational on Mars for 157 sols. Its instruments were used to assess the local habitability and to research the history of water on Mars. The mission was part of the Mars Scout Program; its total cost was $420 million, including the cost of launch.
Venera 7 was a Soviet spacecraft, part of the Venera series of probes to Venus. When it landed on the Venusian surface on 15 December 1970, it became the first spacecraft to soft land on another planet and the first to transmit data from there back to Earth.
An aeroshell is a rigid heat-shielded shell that helps decelerate and protects a spacecraft vehicle from pressure, heat, and possible debris created by drag during atmospheric entry. Its main components consist of a heat shield and a back shell. The heat shield absorbs heat caused by air compression in front of the spacecraft during its atmospheric entry. The back shell carries the load being delivered, along with important components such as a parachute, rocket engines, and monitoring electronics like an inertial measurement unit that monitors the orientation of the shell during parachute-slowed descent.
A Mars landing is a landing of a spacecraft on the surface of Mars. Of multiple attempted Mars landings by robotic, uncrewed spacecraft, ten have had successful soft landings. There have also been studies for a possible human mission to Mars, including a landing, but none have been attempted. Soviet Union’s Mars 3, which landed in 1971, was the first successful Mars landing. As of 2023, the Soviet Union, United States and China have conducted Mars landings successfully.
The Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) mission was a robotic lander designed to study the deep interior of the planet Mars. It was manufactured by Lockheed Martin Space, was managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and two of its three scientific instruments were built by European agencies. The mission launched on 5 May 2018 at 11:05:01 UTC aboard an Atlas V-401 launch vehicle and successfully landed at Elysium Planitia on Mars on 26 November 2018 at 19:52:59 UTC. InSight was active on Mars for 1440 sols.
Deep Space 2 penetrator
Deep Space 2 surface element
DS-2 entry aeroshell
Visualization of Deep Space 2 as deployed after penetration
DS2 functional animation
DS2 probe components
