Mars and Its Robotic Armada

A fleet of rovers and spacecraft is actively exploring the Red Planet.

Trekking through its sand dunes and craters are the Opportunity and Curiosity rovers. Opportunity, the older of the two, has been active on Mars since landing in 2004. It was supposed to last only three months, but it has persisted more than 12 years past its expiration date. In that time it has spotted swirling dust devils, uncovered ancient acidic lakes and completed the first “Martian Marathon.” Curiosity, which landed in 2012, has drilled into the planet’s surface and discovered organic chemicals essential to life.

Orbiting above are the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the Mars Odyssey and Maven, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission. These probes have searched for chemical clues on the surface and in the atmosphere to learn more about Mars’s ancient past. NASA’s martian armada has provided tantalizing details about how the once wet world became dry and desolate.

Exploring Mars is not only an American affair. Also soaring above the red planet is the Indian Space Research Organization’s Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), which was launched in 2013 and has orbited the planet since 2014. Later this year, the European Space Agency and the Russian Federal Space Agency plan to land a probe of their own called ExoMars.