Mars Rovers

By: Kaleb Robertson

8 successfully landed Mars Rovers/Landers

1. 2. 3. May 1971: Mars 3 successfully lands on mars but has a malfunction and loses connection seconds later. Aug.Sept. 1975: Viking 1 was a orbiter and lander combo, the lander landed successfully and took the first pictures of mars from its surface. The Viking 1 then remained operational tell 1982. Sept. 3, 1976: Viking 2 was Viking 1s twin; landing a year after Viking 1, Viking 2 also took pictures from the surface but only remained operational tell 1980. July 4, 1997: The Pathfinder/ Sojourners lander landed successfully and deployed a small rover which was the first of its kind and it was the first Rover on Mars. January 2004: Spirit was sent to find traces of water on mars and it was accompanied by the Opportunity. January 2004: Opportunity was sent to do the same thing as the spirit. May 2008: Phoenix landed in the northern plains of Mars and digs trenches in soil to detect water. August 2012: Curiosity is one of the largest rovers to land on Mars and is the latest rover.

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Mars 3
Mars 3 was launched along with two other space crafts, Its twin Mars 2, and a satellite/ orbiter called the Cosmos 419. Both Space crafts did not complete there missions, the Cosmos failed to leave Earths orbit , and the Mars 2 made it to Mars orbit but its lander crashed. Mars 3 was a combination of a lander and an orbiter. Mars 3 Successfully recorded the surface temperature of Mars and was able to take many pictures of the planet from the orbiter. The lander of Mars 3 landed softly and successfully but failed seconds later after touching down. The cause of the failure is unknown.

Viking 1 & Viking 2

Viking 1 and Viking 2 are twin Orbiter and lander combos. Both Viking 1 and Viking 2 were sent to mars to find traces of Martian life. Viking 1 took the first ever panoramic photograph of Marss surface. While carrying out dedicated experiments to detect biological processes both spacecraft's provided a large amount of data and photos .

Pathfinder/ Sojourner
Pathfinder was a lander that carried a small rover known as the sojourner. The Pathfinder and Sojourner were sent to mars by N.A.S.A to prove that the development of "faster, better and cheaper" spacecraft was possible. The pathfinder sent more than 2.3 billion bits of information including 16,500 pictures and made 8.5 million measurements of the temperature, atmospheric pressure, and wind speed.

Spirit & Opportunity

Spirit and Opportunity were Twin Rovers. They were both sent to do geological experiments in order to find out information past water activity and to gather as much information possible using rocks to try to find out more about any possible life on mars. The Spirit and Opportunity found possible traces of water after discovering what is called Mimi rock. The Spirit was able to successfully video dust devils on Mars.

Phoenix
The Phoenix was a lander. Phoenix was used to find areas suitable for microbial life on Mars, and to study the history of water on Mars. The Phoenix was basically a whether station and lander together; The Phoenix landed and set up its weather station and other instruments and studied to find if life ever existed in this icy land.

Curiosity
Go to The Curiosity page of website for more information.