Mars

First photograph ever seen of the Martian surface taken by the Viking 1 Lander.

Viking 1 was also the first mission to successfully land on Mars. On board the spacecraft was the Viking 1 Lander which made the first successful landing on Mars on the 20th of July 1976.

It operated on the surface of Mars for 2,245 Sols (Martian Days) or 2307 Earth days (over 6 and a quarter years). 

Viking 1 Lander<br/>This guy did not land on Mars.

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On the 10th of June 2003 and the 8th of July 2003 NASA launched a new type of Rover towards Mars landing on the 4th of January 2004 and the 25th of January 2004. They were called Spirit and Opportunity.

Spirit was due to operate for just 90 Sols but in fact operated for 2,208 Sols before it became stuck and stopped.

Opportunity as you can see from the dates had a much faster and shorter journey to Mars because of the date it was launched.

Spirit and opportunity landed on different sides of Mars.

Spirit lost the use of one of its wheels during its travels. It slowed it down even more but allowed scientists to take samples from under the surface. Sometimes even when things go wrong it can work to your advantage.

The first to successfully launch and reach Mars were the Americans. Mariner 4 was launched on the 28th of November 1964. The mission wasn’t to land on Mars but to simply fly by the planet taking photographs and sending them back along with scientific data.

The journey to Mars took 7 and a half months. It’s first flyby of Mars was on the 14th of July 1965. It’s closest approach to Mars was 9,846km from the surface.

On the 21st of December 1967 (3 years and 23 days later) communication with Mariner was shut down, ending it’s mission.

It captured the first images of another planet. Seeing Mars properly for the first time showed us how barren the planet was. But remember we were still looking form a distance.

Every now and again Curiosity likes to turn its cameras around to take a Selfie. 

Opportunity is still performing experiments on Mars. In June of 2018 a dust storm forced it to go into hibernation to protect itself. It is still in hibernation as dust storms on Mars can sometimes last months at a time. It is hoped that once the dust settles Opportunity will once again start beaming back data.

Despite travelling for more than 15 years Opportunity has actually travelled less than 50km on Mars. It won’t be breaking the speed limit any time soon.

On the 5th of May 2018 NASA launched the Insight Lander. It is currently on it’s way to Mars and is expected to land on the 26th of November 2018.

The Insight lander is not designed to move once it has landed and is due to conduct experiments on the geology of Mars.

Opportunity is still operational after 15 years of travelling around Mars.

In the early 2000’s the European Space Agency joined the adventure sending the Mars Express to orbit the planet. It was launched on the 2nd of June 2003 and is still orbiting the planet. It currently has enough fuel to continue until 2026.

Artists impression of the Mars Express orbiting Mars.

Both Spirit and Opportunity were equipped with better cameras than previous missions and throughout their journeys they have sent back some remarkable images.

This is a photograph taken by Spirit of a Martian sunset. Remember that Mars is further from the sun than the Earth which is why the sun appears much smaller than it would here at home.

Part of the mission was to also send a lander called Beagle 2, created by British scientists to the surface of the planet. Unfortunately scientists lost contact with Beagle 2 and it’s fate remained a mystery until 2015 when it was located on the surface of Mars by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Images showed that not all of the landers solar panels had deployed and without them communication would have been impossible.

Image showing the location of Beagle 2 on the surface of Mars.

Mission To MARS! 15-Year-Old Alyssa Carson Could Be The First Human On Mars

Think you have what it takes to be a Mars Astronaut. This video will give you some idea of what you need to be doing to prepare.

This is an image of a Meteorite found by Curiosity on the surface of Mars.

Mars Pathfinder landed on the surface of Mars on the 4th of July 1996. The lander then opened exposing the Rover, Sojourner. 

Sojourner (rover) - Video Learning - WizScience.com

Sojourner had 6 wheels but was only 65cm long, 48cm wide and weighed just 10.5kg. It had a maximum speed of 1cm per second. It never travelled more than 12 metres from the lander and in fact over the 83 Sols it operated, it only traveled about 100 metres.

Link to YouTube video on the Mars Pathfinder Mission.

Sojourner began it’s own journey on Sol 2 (2nd Martian Day) of the mission.

The Viking 1 was a stunning success for NASA and the Americans. For the first time people could see what the surface of Mars actually looked like. 

You can also <a href="https://youtu.be/zeApJ2nuYmY">click here</a> to access the video.

Viking 1’s mission was to search for possible signs of life on Mars. It found none. But scientists still believed (or hoped) that Mars could contain signs of life elsewhere.

Link to YouTube video on the Viking Mission.

Viking First Views of Mars

Contact was lost with Viking 1 when the wrong computer code was sent from Earth and resulted in a loss of communication. 

The Viking 2 Lander also landed on the Martians surface operating for 1,281 Sols.

In 2006 the Mars Reconnaissance  Orbiter mission located the missing Viking 1.

The next few pages contain some of the amazing images Curiosity has sent back from Mars.

It’s not just the Americans, the Russians and the Europeans who have attempted to get to Mars. 

In 1998 the Japanese launched a spacecraft which it was hoped would orbit the Red Planet. Unfortunately it ran out of fuel before it got there. 

In 2011 the Chinese launched their own Orbiter but it failed to leave Earths orbit. 

On the 5th of November 2013 India launched an Orbiter. It succeeded in entering into orbit around Mars and is expected to stay in orbit until 2020. 

The next few pages contain some larger photographs taken by Spirit and Opportunity on Mars.

On the 20th of August 1970 NASA launched the Viking 1 Spacecraft. It entered Mars orbit 10 months later and successfully completed 1,385 orbits of the planet.

It was decided not to crash land Viking 1 at the end of it’s mission in case it contaminated Mars. It was put back into orbit and is scheduled to crash to the surface of Mars in 2019. As of today it is not known if Viking 1 is still in orbit or has already crash landed.

Viking 1 sent back lots of scientific data and event visited one of Mars moons, Phobos in February 2007.

Looking into the sky at night we can see stars. Lots and lots of stars. But look closely and sometimes you will see what looks like a red star. This is on fact the planet Mars, our closest planetary neighbour.

Once humankind had taken to the skies the first object everyone wanted to reach was, naturally, The Moon. But it wasn’t long before scientists set their ambitions a little further. 

The first attempts at reaching Mars were not very successful. Russia (then called the Soviet Union) were the first to try, launching the 1M No.1 spacecraft on the 10th of October 1960. Unfortunately shortly after it left the ground it began vibrating which resulted in the rocket exploding over Siberia.

Photo of Sojourner taken by the Mars Pathfinder Lander.

Sojourner taking samples from one of the many rocks at the landing site.

Over the following years and decades there were some more successes as well as failures as scientists tried to gather information on Mars.

On the 4th of December 1996, the Mars Pathfinder mission was launched by NASA.

Mars Pathfinder consisted of a lander and a small rover which could leave the lander to explore more of the Red Planet. The Rover was called Sojourner. 

<a href="bookcreator://page/U46jV8IETpGLm4TXdHNp-g">First Efforts</a>

<a href="bookcreator://page/ggDEyF0gTYuKdRYgbU1UzA">Curiosity</a>

<a href="bookcreator://page/TH88moHaRieq3j3uAUhSmw">Viking 1</a>

<a href="bookcreator://page/PnrshMU4QbOaEmkubFOSsQ">Other Missions</a>

<a href="bookcreator://page/eEl12OYUSFGCPlXNCDWOoQ">Mars Pathfinder</a>

<a href="bookcreator://page/mggkI-AIQPaKCd24ZX_ekg">Future Missions</a>

<a href="bookcreator://page/DM9-6KtfTESi_lseZR9WZA">European Space Agency</a>

<a href="bookcreator://page/0qbz5WwgQkq7smYAJTSyUA">Spirit and Opportunity</a>

All images sourced using Creative Commons.

Clicking on this image on any page will bring you back to the Table of Contents.

Link to YouTube video on the Opportunity Mission.

Opportunity (rover) - Video Learning - WizScience.com

On the 26th of November 2011 NASA launched the Curiosity Rover.

Curiosity is the size of a car and is the largest of the Rovers on Mars.

It’s original mission was to last 2 years but in December 2012 it was decided to continue indefinitely. 

As of August 2018 Curiosity has travelled 21km. It won’t be breaking any speed records but is by far the fastest of the rovers we have sent to the Red Planet.

At this time the Russians were still unsuccessfully trying to reach Mars. The Americans had further successes with Mariner 6, 7 and 9.

The Russians finally managed to get a spacecraft into orbit with the launch of Mars 2 in May 1971. The spacecraft successfully orbited Mars 362 times although it’s efforts to conduct experiments were not as successful.

The Russians also managed to orbit the planet 20 times with the Mars 3 Spacecraft. It did however manage to land on the surface of the planet. Unfortunately contact was lost just 14.2 seconds later.

5 Future Mars missions

Link to YouTube video on plans for new missions to Mars.

First colour photograph taken by the Viking 1 Lander on the 21st of July 1976.

The Scientists at NASA (who obviously had too much time on their hands) bagel naming the rocks and features around the Mars Pathfinder landing site. Zoom in to see if you can recognise some of the names they gave them.

Artists impression of Sojourner as it moves away from the landing site.

The bags you can see are the airbags the lander was wrapped in to protect it when it hit the surface of Mars.

Name

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