Top 8 Successful List Of Missions To Mars

Mars landings has been targeted by different pace agencies especially NASA since 1960. NASA has approached red planet with the help of orbiter, lander, rover and flyby missions. These missions has gathered a lot of information about the red planet and also put a base for future mars missions and also exploring other planets in space, here is the list of 8 successful list of missions to Mars,

List Of Missions To Mars

1.Zhurong, China National Space Administration (CNSA), 2024

China first rover was landed on May 14, and its first images reached Earth on May 19.
The rover has been named Zhurong which is after the ancient Chinese god of fire and it was orbiting mars since February 10, when China’s Tianwen-1 spacecraft entered Martian orbit.
The rover landed on a vast plain called Utopia Planitia ad this is the same area that has been touched down by NASA in 1976 with the help of Viking 2’s site was much farther north (SN: 9/11/76).
This makes China’s first Mars mission and makes China only the second country to successfully land a rover there followed by the USA.

Also Read: Top 4 Successful List Of Missions To Saturn

Zhurong , NASA,China National Space Administration (CNSA), 2024

Image Source: Wikimedia

2.Curiosity, NASA, United States, 2012

Curiosity rover is one of the latest missions to Mars which is a car-sized Mars rover designed to explore the Gale crater on Mars which is a part of NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission.
The rover was launched from Cape Canaveral (CCAFS) on 26 November 2011 and it landed on Aeolis Palus inside Gale crater on Mars on 6 August 2012, 05:17:57 UTC.
The primary reason for sending the rover was to gather supporting elements on Mars for microbial life.
It is still evaluating the radiant surface of Mars and it is also very helpful in reading how such radios will affect human visitors in future missions.
Almost all the curiosity rover experiments has been conducted on the gale crater region which is as old as 3.8 billion years of age. It has provided much data about ancient Mars and also has discovered evidence of rivers flowing through the gale crater billion years ago.

Image Source: Wikimedia

3.Phoenix, NASA, United States, 2008

Phoenix is an uncrewed space probe that landed on the surface of Mars on May 25, 2008, and is in operation till November 2, 2008.
It was operational on Mars for 161 days and the primary reason was to study the local habitability and to research the history of water on Mars.
Phoenix was a partnership of Universities from several countries including the US, Canada, Denmark, Switzerland, Germany and the UK.
It is also the first spacecraft to return data from the polar region of Mars and in July 2008 Phoenix also discovered the presence of water ice on Mars.

Also Read: 10 Space Shuttle Disasters In History Of Mankind

Image Source: Wikimedia

4.Opportunity, NASA, United States, 2004

Opportunity rover is one of the mars landings also known as MER-B (Mars Exploration Rover – B) or MER-1 nicknamed as Oppy is a robotic rover that was active on Mars from 2004 until mid-2018.
The rover was operational on mars for 5250 days(14 years, 136 days) and it is helpful in back much scientific observation to earth.
The Opportunity rover was equipped with panoramic and navigation cameras, soil testing tools, microscopic images and magnets.
The mission highlights was a 90-sol mission, finding meteorites such as Heat Shield Rock (Meridiani Planum meteorite), and over two years of exploring and studying Victoria crater.

Image Source: Wikimedia

5.Spirit, NASA, United States, 2004

Spirit rover is also known as MER-A (Mars Exploration Rover – A) or MER-2 is also a robotic rover on Mars that was active on mars from 2004 to 2010.
It was active for 2249 days which is 6 years, 77 days is also one of the two rovers of NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Mission managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The rover was featured by two cameras and instruments for testing soil and rock. It made a deep geological analysis of the Martian surface and rocks.
This also provided the presence of water and ice within the surface of the planet.
The rover was stuck in a sand trap” in late 2009 at an angle that hampered the recharging of its batteries and the last communication was shared on March 22, 2010.

Image Source: NASA

6.Mars Pathfinder and Sojourner, NASA, United States, 1997

Mars Pathfinder and Sojourner knew as MESUR Pathfinder is an American robotic spacecraft that landed on Mars in 1997.
It consists of a lightweight (10.6 kg/23 lb) wheeled robotic Mars rover named Sojourner which is the first rover to operate outside the Earth-Moon system.
The rover was operated for a duration of three months of operation and retrieved 2.3 billion bits of information.
The data shared by the rover was around 17050 images of Mars and also tested soils and rocks samples from the Martian surface.

Image Source: Wikipedia

7.Viking 1, NASA, United States, 1976

Viking 1 was the first successful spacecraft that successfully landed on Mars and completed the mission.
The mission was launched on 20th August 1975 along with Viking 2 and both has 10 months of space journey on 19th June 1976 it landed on the Martian surface.
This is the second-largest mars mission spent around 2307 days on Mars.
Viking 1 shared some of the valuable information about the possibilities of life on Mars.

Image Source: Wikipedia

8.Viking 2, NASA, United States, 1976

Viking 2 was launched 2 weeks after Viking 1 and this one has operated for long 1316 days on Martian Surface.
The rover landed on Mars on September 3, 1976, and it was shut down on 11th April 1980 because of battery failure.
This has explored major areas of Mars and analyzed the samples of soil and carried out biological experiments for finding evidence of life.
As per NASA, Viking 2 has shared 16000 images of Mars to Earth and spent approximately $1billion for the Viking program.