A Brief History of Successful Mars Explorations

Throughout history, humankind has looked skyward to Mars and wondered: Could it be another Earth? Mars has a tilted axis, an atmosphere, and a day only forty minutes longer than that of Earth. With so many surface similarities, even without clear evidence of life in Mars’s past, there is every reason to believe there is life in the Red Planet’s future.

Since 1960, humanity launched dozens of missions to Mars to learn more about our planetary neighbor. Mars appears to be a world once rich in water and perhaps, in life, presenting an interesting counterpart to Earth. Since the first successful flyby in 1965, four space agencies have successfully made it to Mars: NASA, the former Soviet Union space program, the European Space Agency, and the Indian Space Research Organization.

As it stands right now, currently operational on the planet there is one lander (InSight), three rovers (NASA’s Curiosity, Perseverance, and China’s Zhurong), and one NASA’s Helicopter (Ingenuity). Orbiting Mars are eight satellites, providing massive amounts of data on our dusty neighbor.

Let's look at the timeline for all successful Mars missions:

1960s-early 1970s: Flybys & photographs

MARINER 4

Success
United States • Nov. 28, 1964 • Flyby
First successful flyby July 14, 1965; returned 21 photos.

First close-up image of Mars as captured during flyby of Mariner 4.

MARINER 6

Success
United States • Feb. 24, 1969 • Flyby
Successful flyby July 31, 1969; returned 75 photos.

Mariner 6 spacecraft

MARINER 7

Success
United States • March 27, 1969 • Flyby
Successful flyby Aug. 5, 1969; returned 126 photos.

Full disc views of Mars imaged by Mariner 7 during approach in 1969.

MARINER 9

Success
United States • May 30, 1971 • Orbiter
Operated in orbit Nov. 13, 1971 to Oct. 27, 1972, returned 7,329 photos.

Mariner 9’s view of the “labyrinth” at the western end of Vallis Marineris.

1970s-1980s: Landings on Mars, and attempts to reach Phobos

VIKING 1

Success
United States • Aug. 20, 1975 • Orbiter & lander
Entered orbit June 19, 1976, and operated until Aug. 7, 1980; landed July 20, 1976, and operated until Nov. 11, 1982.

VIKING 2

Success
United States • Sept. 9, 1975 • Orbiter & lander
Entered orbit Aug. 7, 1976, and operated until July 25, 1978; landed Sept. 3, 1976, and operated until April 11, 1980; combined, the Viking orbiters and landers returned more than 50,000 photos.

Viking 2’s image of Mars Utopian Plain.

PHOBOS 2

Partial Success
USSR • July 12, 1988 • Mars orbiter & Phobos lander
Entered orbit, lost contact March 1989 near Phobos.

1990s: Better, faster, cheaper

MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR

Success
United States • Nov. 7, 1996 • Orbiter
Arrived Sept. 12, 1997; mapped in high detail through January 2000, completed its third extended mission in September 2006, and last communicated Nov. 2, 2006.

Spanning s a region of about 1,500 m (4,921 ft) across, this Mars Global Surveyor image shows gullies on the walls of Newton Basin in Sirenum Terra.

MARS PATHFINDER (SOJOURNER)

Success
United States • Dec. 4, 1996 • Lander & rover
Landed July 4, 1997, completed prime mission and began extended mission Aug. 3, 1997, and last communicated on Sept. 27, 1997.

Sojourner takes a measurement of the Yogi Rock.

2000s to present: Rovers, orbiters galore, and First Helicopter

MARS ODYSSEY

Success
United States • March 7, 2001 • Orbiter
Entered orbit Oct. 24, 2001, completed prime mission Aug. 24, 2004, currently conducting extended mission of science collection and communication relay.

Odyssey passes above Mars’ south pole in this artist’s illustration. The spacecraft has been orbiting the Red Planet since October 24, 2001.

MARS EXPLORATION ROVER-A (SPIRIT)

Success
United States • June 10, 2003 • Rover
Landed Jan. 4, 2004 for three-month prime mission inside Gusev Crater, completed several extended missions, last communicated March 22, 2010, mission declared complete May 25, 2011.

MARS EXPLORATION ROVER-B (OPPORTUNITY)

Success
United States • July 7, 2003 • Rover
Landed Jan. 25, 2004 for three-month prime mission in Meridiani Planum region, completed several extended missions, last communicated June 10, 2018, mission declared complete on Feb. 13, 2019.

Opportunity looks back toward the west rim of Endeavour Crater during the summer of 2014.

MARS RECONNAISSANCE ORBITER

Success
United States • Aug. 12, 2005 • Orbiter
Entered orbit March 12, 2006, completed prime mission 9/26/10, currently conducting extended mission of science collection and communication relay.

PHOENIX MARS LANDER

Success
United States • Aug. 4, 2007 • Lander
Landed May 25, 2008, completed prime mission and began extended mission Aug. 26, 2008, last communicated Nov. 2, 2008.

MARS SCIENCE LABORATORY (CURIOSITY)

Success
United States • Nov. 26, 2011 • Rover
Landed Aug. 6, 2012, completed prime mission, currently conducting extended science mission.

This composite image looking toward the higher regions of Mount Sharp was taken on September 9, 2015, by NASA’s Curiosity rover.

MARS ORBITER MISSION (MANGALYAAN)

Success
India • Nov. 5, 2013 • Orbiter
Entered orbit Sept. 14, 2014, completed prime mission, currently conducting extended mission.

MARS ATMOSPHERE AND VOLATILE EVOLUTION MISSION (MAVEN)

Success
United States • Nov. 18, 2013 • Orbiter;
Entered orbit Sept. 21, 2014; completed prime mission, currently conducting extended science mission.

INSIGHT LANDER

Success
United States • May 5, 2018 • Lander
Landed Nov. 26, 2018, currently conducting prime mission at Elysium Planitia.

MARCO

Success
United States • May 5, 2018 • Two-CubeSat providing data relay for InSight Lander.
Flew by Mars and completed relay Nov. 26, 2018, concluded operations Feb. 2, 2020.

EMIRATES HOPE MISSION

Success

United Arab Emirates • Launched July 19, 2020 • Orbiter

The United Arab Emirate’s Hope orbiter is shown with its solar panels fully deployed before final preparations for its launch.

TIANWEN 1

Success

China • Launched July 23, 2020 • Orbiter, lander & rover

Photo of Martian surface taken by Zhurong on lander.

MARS 2020

United States • Launched July 30, 2020 • Rover • Helicopter

Ingenuity Helicopter First aerodynamic flight on another planet. Landed with Perseverance rover on 18 February 2021. Deployed from rover on 3 April 2021. First flight achieved on April 19, 2021.

Future of Mars exploration

Once every 26 months, Earth and Mars are aligned in a way that minimizes travel times and expense, enabling spacecraft to make the interplanetary journey in roughly half a year. Earth’s space agencies tend to launch probes during these conjunctions.

All of the robotic activity is, of course, laying the groundwork for sending humans to the next world over. NASA is targeting the 2030s as a reasonable timeframe for setting the first boots on Mars and is developing a space capsule, Orion, that will be able to ferry humans to the moon and beyond.

Private spaceflight companies such as SpaceX are also getting into the Mars game. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has repeatedly said that humanity must become “a multi-planetary species” if we are to survive, and he is working on a plan that could see a million people living on Mars before the end of this century.

Soon, in one way or another, humanity may finally know whether our neighboring planet ever hosted life — and whether there’s a future for our species on another world.