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As NASA prepares to launch its new Curiosity Mars rover, we look back at some of the highlights--and the misfires--in more than 50 years of Mars missions
November 3, 2011 |
Scientific American Magazine
The Mars Phoenix mission revived hopes that the Red Planet may be habitable, preparing the way for a new rover to be launched this month
Interactive Features
Two Mars missions are scheduled to launch this month. How have their predecessors fared?
Interactive Features
Here is a look at where humankind's many Mars landers have touched down, and where the planet betrays a history of all-important liquid water
News
Mars has plenty of minerals that suggest a watery past, but that does not mean that the Red Planet once looked like Earth
The site is a giant crater called Gale, thought to harbor clues of ancient water activity on the Martian surface
In a speech from Florida's Space Coast, the president argued the case for his proposed NASA budget and outlined his vision for human spaceflight
A tagalong to the Russian sample-return mission makes some researchers uncomfortable
Bountiful carbonate minerals in a rock outcrop on the Red Planet could have formed under watery greenhouse conditions billions of years ago
The wandering orbit of Jupiter at the dawn of the solar system may have had wide-ranging effects
Humankind has been confined to Earth's orbital environs for decades, but plans abound for manned missions to deeper reaches of the solar system
Now designated a stationary science platform, Spirit's next order of business is bracing for a long, harsh winter
Without a firm destination, will NASA's ambitions for a return to manned spaceflight beyond Earth orbit founder? Or, will scrapping the Constellation Program give the U.S. more options for human exploration of the moon, Mars and the asteroids?
On the frontier of planetary exploration, nothing is easy
For more than 40 years, missions throughout the solar system have sent back stunning images of our home planet
Radar soundings point to huge deposits of carbon dioxide near the Red Planet's south pole, which may have once contributed to a different climate
The only scientist and field geologist ever to visit the moon offers some pointers to those who will one day visit Mars
Signs of repeated ice- and snow-melt in a mid-latitude gully may point to the most recent water activity on the Red Planet's surface
Despite a gummed up drill bit and three days of very un-Martian precipitation, engineers pronounced the test a success--and learned to expect the unexpected, whether it be in the California outback or on Mars
Fifty years after the first human ventured into space, we need some creative thinking
Newfound features on the Red Planet hint that liquid water may still exist there
Seven years into its three-month mission, the Mars rover Opportunity reaches Endeavour Crater, a possible geologic treasure trove. John Matson reports
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