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Mars

At Work on Mars

Mars Exploration at JPL

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Perseverance Rover

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Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover

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InSight

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Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

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Mars Odyssey

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For more than half a century, NASA's fleet of increasingly sophisticated orbiters, landers, and rovers has helped us transform science fiction into reality, enabling us to piece together detailed information about Mars, our nearest planetary neighbor. These robotic explorers have revealed details of the Red Planet’s diverse surface, atmosphere, and weather, the presence of water in its past, and its potential for life through the ages and for astronauts in the future.

JPL has played a pivotal role in this exploration, starting when the first successful spacecraft, Mariner 4, completed the first Mars flyby in 1965, and in 1976, when two Viking landers successfully touched down on the Martian surface. The era of Mars rovers opened when Mars Pathfinder and its Sojourner rover successfully landed in 1997. In fact, JPL designed, built, and operated all five of the successful Mars rovers. Since 1997, JPL-managed spacecraft have been exploring continuously on the ground and in the skies above Mars.

What We Learn By Exploring Mars

That reddish planet in our nighttime skies has long intrigued brilliant science fiction writers and enthusiasts. Fortunately, Mars has also attracted great science and technology minds, including many at JPL who help us address tantalizing questions through an ongoing, focused series of Mars missions.

Those missions have already revealed strong evidence that some areas once had conditions suitable for life. Knowing that Mars was habitable, the question becomes: Was it ever inhabited? And if so, is life still there today, perhaps in polar ice or deep underground? The early Mars climate was more Earth-like. What changed so dramatically? Mars still has a rock record of that ancient climate on its surface, providing key clues to a part of planetary history largely erased from our own planet. So, what can we learn from Mars about our own planet’s history and future?

Among other things, we may be able to answer some questions about the origin and evolution of life, and how climates change. What we learn will also help pave the way for future human explorers to Mars, the closest habitable word to our own.

Feature

5 Hidden Gems Are Riding Aboard NASA's Perseverance Rover

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NASA resource

Mars Exploration

More About Mars

News Nov 24, 2020

MOXIE Could Help Future Rockets Launch Off Mars

News Apr 21, 2021

NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover Extracts First Oxygen From Red Planet

Image Apr 21, 2021

Matara Crater Dunes - False Color

Image Apr 20, 2021

Noachis Terra Crater - False Color

Mission Spotlight
Mars 2020

The Mars 2020 mission with its Perseverance rover is part of NASA's Mars Exploration Program, a long-term effort of robotic exploration of the Red Planet.

Explore

Time on Mars

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Image Apr 20, 2021

Enhanced Video Shows Dust During Ingenuity's Flight

News Apr 19, 2021

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Succeeds in Historic First Flight

Image Apr 19, 2021

Altimeter Chart for Ingenuity's First Flight

Image Apr 19, 2021

Ingenuity's First Flight Recorded by Mastcam-Z

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