Category Archives: Mars

More than half a century after Neil Armstrong took mankinds giant leap on the moon, another space race is heating up. This time, the promising new frontier for Earthlings is Mars, the planet next door.

A spate of robotic missions to the red planet, including NASAs Perseverance rover this year and Chinas Zhurong this month, have led to the inevitable question: When can humans follow? Unmanned missions over the decades have beamed a trove of information, including the presence of water ice on Mars, fueling expectations a human landing is possible. But how soon? And, are we ready?

Mars Base 1 in the Gobi desert in China.

Photographer: Wang Zhao/AFP/Getty Images

NASA wants to send astronauts to Mars, perhaps at some point in the 2030s. The United Arab Emirates -- which now has a spacecraft orbiting the planet -- is promoting a 100-year plan to create a colony there. While China has said sending humans to Mars is its long-term goal, those eager for a taste of Martian life can visit a simulation site in the Gobi desert for now.

The most ambitious of them all is billionaire Elon Musk. The founder of Space Exploration Technologies Corp. wants to send humans this decade, saying in an interview last year that he was confident a crewed mission could take place in 2026. Many scientists, however, warn of too many unanswered questions confronting deep-space travel. Musk has also acknowledged the risks, saying its tough sledding over there.

Honestly, a bunch of people probably will die at the beginning, the tycoon said in an interview with X Prize Foundation founder Peter Diamandis.

Here are some of the biggest challenges, from surviving cosmic radiation and dust storms to producing oxygen and water:

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The Apollo astronauts could fly to the moon in just a few days, but a trip to Mars would take anywhere between six to nine months. With the distance between Mars and Earth varying between 35 million miles and 249 million miles due to their elliptical orbits, theres only a small window available when the two are ideally aligned for space travel. That makes logistics much trickier.

With lunar exploration, theres always the prospect of rescue or provisioning or supply from Earth or from a midway space station, said Alice Gorman, an associate professor at Flinders University in Adelaide and a member of the advisory council of the Space Industry Association of Australia. Thats not going to be the case for Mars.

A long flight would expose humans to one of space travels biggest terrors: solar flares. The most powerful type of explosion in the solar system, a flare is the equivalent of 100 million hydrogen bombs. The Earths magnetic field can shield astronauts in orbit, but a deep-space traveler hit by such radiation would not be able to survive more than a few days.

A solar flare as observed by the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly on NASAs Solar Dynamics Observatory.

Its a very gruesome way to die, said Lewis Dartnell, a professor and specialist in astrobiology in the Department of Life Sciences at the University of Westminster in London. He does research linked to life on Mars.

The Apollo program didnt address this issue, choosing instead to take the chance that the few days of a lunar mission wouldnt coincide with a solar event. It would be a different story for multi-month trips to Mars.

Water tanks onboard the spacecraft could act as shields if positioned properly, said Dartnell, so in the event of a flare, travelers could retreat to the spacecrafts version of a panic room surrounded by water tanks. The problem is detecting activity on the Sun, especially on the side not facing the Earth. How can we make our space weather prediction good enough that we can give the crew notice? he said. We dont have established capacity to observe the Sun from different angles for tracking solar storms.

Radiation isnt just a problem en route. Mars has a much thinner atmosphere than Earth and doesnt have a global magnetic shield, so humans on the planets surface would be at risk of exposure to solar and cosmic radiation. Moreover, the surface itself is largely dust, and massive storms can create dust clouds that block out the Sun, said Nilton Renno, a professor at the University of Michigan whose research interests include astrobiology.

During such a storm, its almost like midnight on the surface of Mars for two months, Renno said. If you are there with solar panels for power, you very likely dont survive. You dont have enough energy to keep things warm enough.

One solution would be for humans to use that dust to protect themselves, lining shelters with sandbags filled with Martian soil that could block out radiation, said Joseph Michalski, an associate professor who explores the habitability of Mars at the University of Hong Kong. Humans could also return to their cave-dwelling roots by finding temporary shelter in some of the planets many lava tubes, large caverns from ancient times when Mars had volcanic activity.

In The Martian -- the 2015 Hollywood blockbuster -- Matt Damons stranded astronaut grew potatoes by fertilizing the planets soil with his own feces. Elisabeth Hausrath, an associate professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, has more modest farming ambitions. For the past year and a half, NASA has been supporting her research into growing snow algae, a type thats common in the Nevada desert and other high-altitude, low-nutrient environments on Earth, in conditions mimicking those of Mars.

Theyve been growing great, she said. The idea is that the algae could grow in greenhouses made of flexible material similar to that of a space suit. Growing algae in such conditions could not only create a source of food but also produce oxygen. The research is still in its early stages.

Scientists also still need to resolve how humans could get enough water to survive on Mars. The planet does have some sub-surface ice that could be water sources and a future Mars mission will need to use radar to map its distribution, said Victoria Hamilton, a planetary geologist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. Once you know where the ice is, those are locations where you might send humans, she said.

Unless everyone signs up for a one-way trip, humans traveling to Mars will need to take a rocket back to Earth. Figuring out how to get fuel to power that spacecraft back into space is the biggest technological hurdle would-be Mars explorers face, said Michalski.

Its not the case that we would bring the rocket fuel with us, he said. Its just too heavy.

A woman wearing a spacesuit at Mars Base 1 in the Gobi desert.

Photographer: Wang Zhao/AFP/Getty Images

One solution might be to use the resources on the planet to make fuel by first electrically separating water from sub-surface ice and hydrated rocks, then combining the hydrogen and oxygen to make rocket fuel, said Michalski.

Sooner or later, optimists believe, scientists will solve these problems.

Today its definitely a place where we cant live, said Adnan AlRais, Mars 2117 program manager for the UAEs Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center. But as we develop science and technologies, the answer might be different in 50 to 100 years from now.

With assistance by Layan Odeh

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Can Humans Live on Mars? Here Who's Trying to Do It and What Are the Obstacles - Bloomberg

Welcome to the 86th edition of 6 Storm Team Starwatch! This is a blog that will be posted every week that will list events happening in the sky!

The Last Quarter Moon occurs early Wednesday morning (Sky & Telescope). Jupiter and Saturn will be visible to the upper right of the Moon (Sky & Telescope). Remember, a Last Quarter Moon looks like a half moon (Sky & Telescope).

If you look to the West-Northwest about 30 minutes after sunset you will be able to see Venus and Mars (Sky & Telescope). Venus will be closer to the horizon while Mars is higher in the sky (Sky & Telescope). Additionally, the two bright stars Pollux and Castor will be visible in the constellation Gemini (Sky & Telescope). You may even be able to see two stick figure twins if you look closely (Sky & Telescope). The image below shows what to look for.

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This Week's Sky at a Glance, May 28 – June 5

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6 Storm Team Starwatch: Venus and Mars visible in the sky this week - WATE 6 On Your Side

The Perseverance rover has created a breath of fresh air on Mars. An experimental device on the NASA rover split carbon dioxide molecules into their component parts. This created enough breathable oxygen to sustain a person for about 10 minutes. It was also enough oxygen to make tiny amounts of rocket fuel.

The toaster-size instrument that did this is called MOXIE. The acronym stands for Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment. Carbon dioxide, or CO2, is the primary gas in the atmosphere on Mars. MOXIEs job is to break the chemical bonds in CO2, releasing oxygen.

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The device works like an electrical tree, says Michael Hecht. By that he means it breathes in CO2 and breathes out oxygen. Hecht is MOXIEs principal investigator. He works at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Cambridge.

When we burn anything, gas in the car or a log in the fireplace, most of what were burning is oxygen, Hecht says. On Earth, we take all that oxygen for granted. We dont think about it. But on Mars, oxygen is largely bound up in CO2.

MOXIE arrived on Mars along with Perseverance this past February 18. Two months later, MOXIE warmed to about 800 Celsius (1,472 Fahrenheit). It then ran long enough to produce five grams of oxygen. Thats not enough to breathe for very long. But the main reason to make oxygen on Mars isnt for breathing, Hecht points out. Its to make fuel for the return journey to Earth.

Future astronauts will have to either bring oxygen with them or make it on Mars. A rocket powerful enough to lift a few astronauts off the Red Planets surface would need about 25 metric tons (27.5 U.S. tons) of oxygen. Thats too much to pack along.

MOXIE is a prototype for the system astronauts could one day use to make rocket fuel. When running at full power, MOXIE can make about 10 grams of oxygen per hour. Powered by Perseverance, it will run for about one Martian day at a time. Hecht notes that a scaled-up version, however, could run nonstop for the 26 months before astronauts arrive.

MOXIE cant run full time now because it would use too much of Perseverances power. The rover has other instruments to run as it goes about its science mission, which is to search for signs of past life on Mars. MOXIE will get a chance to run at least nine more times over the next Martian year (about two Earth years).

The success of this system could set the stage for a permanent research station on Mars, something Hecht would like to see. Thats not something I expect to see in my lifetime, he admits. Still, he says, MOXIE brings it closer by a decade.

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The Perseverance rover split CO2 on Mars to make breathable air - Science News for Students

While most people arent tempted by offers of one-way tickets to Mars that come with built-in guarantees of dying a sad, lonely death on the empty red plains of a faraway planet, theres still a not-insignificant number of people out there who may like to offer their measly lives in tribute to Space Emperor Musk anyway. As loathe as we are to stand in the way of their sacrifice, it may still be a good idea to highlight some grim realities of Martian living that they might not be aware of.

Working from the assumption that the trip itself wont turn travelers into floating corpse balloons before they even get there, Mashable has outlined some of the cool ways to horrifically die on Mars in a new video.

In summary: You can die on Mars from all the water in your bodyincluding your precious urineboiling up. You can die from terrible cancers when Martian UV exposure quickly destabilizes your molecules. You can die from starvation because the planets soil is so toxic that its impossible to grow crops. You can die in a planet-wide, month-long dust storm consisting of incredibly strong winds that also suck up all available moisture. And, you can also die of good old-fashioned hypothermia since Mars is extremely cold. There are, the video explains, so, so many ways to die on the planet.

Sure, none of these terrible things may actually happen to people who head to Mars equipped with proper, well-tested and maintained safety equipment designed to withstand the its natural hostility. But, considering the kind of people currently most interested in getting people there, well, we wouldnt count on not dying in any number of awful accidents, even if they are preventable in theory.

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Fun video explains all the exciting ways humans can die on Mars - The A.V. Club

Symmetry in nature is pleasing to look at, and even more so when that symmetry is novel. Theres plenty of it to see on Earth, as biological processes have a penchant for patterns. But finding it off-world is trickier, and sometimes more striking. Which is why a picture from HiRISE of some Martian dunes is so spectacular.

The picture was actually taken back in 2010, inside of a crater in Noachis Terra, in the red planets southern hemisphere, around 38 degrees by -42.5 degrees in latitude / longitude. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter HiRISE is riding along with was about 252 km above the planets surface when it snapped the image, which covers an area of about 25 square kilometers.

Even with that relatively large size, the image still resolves objects that are less than a meter in size. But the most striking feature of the pictures is the similarity between the dunes, which are actually the thin dark lines. The area between them, the slightly lighter reddish material, is covered in boulders that appear as dots in the image.

Mars and Earth arent the only worlds in the solar system with these fascinating types of dunes. In fact, Titan has the Solar Systems largest linear dune field. Maybe well get a glimpse of those in high resolution when Dragonfly makes a visit to Saturns largest moon in 2034.

Learn More:UA Dune SymmetryFlicker Dune Symmetry

Lead Image:Symmetric dunes on Mars.Credit: NASA / JPL / University of Arizona

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Dunes Trapped in a Crater on Mars Form This Interesting Pattern - Universe Today

Prolonged periods of time in space are punishing on the human body.

Astronauts who have endured space flights have all experienced negative effects from the journey; from loss of body mass and muscles to the redistribution of bodily fluids to the head, which puts pressure on the eyes causing vision problems.

Higher levels of radiation in space can also damage the heart, cause arteries to narrow or harden, and eventually heart disease.

So, how can humans survive the 480 million km journey to the Red Planet without them potentially dying, or at the very least, permanently injuring themselves?

A team of scientists at Queens University Belfast believes they have the answer thanks to a pet shop favourite - zebrafish.

"NASA plans to return to the Moon and onward to Mars in the coming years," said Professor Gary Hardiman, a researcher from the Institute for Global Food Security (IGFS) at Queens and the senior author of a new study published in the journal MDPI Cells.

"Recent technological advancements have made space travel more accessible, however, long-term space travel is incredibly detrimental to human health".

Extensive research in recent years has found that zebrafish share more than 70 per cent of their genetic code with humans, making it a key ally of scientists looking to model how best to fight an array of human diseases.

A 2019 study published in the journal Nature - which took 10 years for scientists to complete - also identified sleep patterns in the small brains of zebrafish which were similar to the brain activity of sleeping human beings.

But one feature of the zebrafish that has caught the attention of Hardimans team of researchers at Queens is its ability to use a form of hibernation called torpor.

"We set out to determine if induced torpor is a viable countermeasure to the harmful effects of spaceflight," explained Hardiman.

"If humans could replicate a similar model of hibernation we have observed in the zebrafish, it could increase our chances of making humans a spacefaring species".

Torpor is an inactive state akin to hibernation where the metabolism slows down to protect an animal from harsh external conditions, such as food scarcity or low temperatures.

The benefits of humans being able to harness this ability could be a game changer for future space travel, according to the team.

For example, it [hibernation] would lead to reduced brain function which would cut down on psychological stress, said Hardiman.

The change to their metabolism would stop them requiring food, oxygen or water and there is a possibility it would protect their muscles from wasting due to the effects caused by radiation and microgravity.

During the course of the study, researchers exposed zebrafish to radiation similar to that which humans would experience travelling on the near seven-month trip to Mars.

The researchers found that this radiation caused signatures of oxidative stress, stress hormone signaling, and halting of the cell cycle within the zebrafish.

The researchers then induced torpor in a second group of zebrafish which were then exposed to the same dose of radiation and analysed them to assess the protective effects during this induced state of physical and mental inactivity.

The results showed that torpor lowered the metabolic rate within the zebrafish and created a radioprotective effect, protecting against the harmful effects of radiation, such as muscle and bone wastage, advanced ageing, and vascular problems.

"Our results reveal that whilst in induced torpor, the zebrafish showed that a reduction in metabolism and oxygen concentration in cells promotes less oxidative stress and greater resistance to radiation," said Thomas Cahill, a PhD student from IGFS at Queens University and co-first author of the research.

"These insights into how a reduction in metabolic rate can offer protection from radiation exposure and could help humans achieve a similar kind of hibernation, counter measuring the damage they currently face during spaceflight".

The study, at least in theory if not in practice, could help to inform missions already in train to get to the Red Planet.

NASA first announced plans for the future habitation of Mars in 2015 with the first stage already in progress. This first "Earth reliant" stage is underway, with the Mars rover mission gathering data to understand the planet and its potential to host life.

The US space agency is aiming to send astronauts to Mars sometime in the 2030s, but not until the effects of long-duration space travel are better understood and infrastructure for deep space missions is in place.

Elon Musks SpaceX programme, however, aims to send a manned mission to the planet as early as 2024.

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Manned missions to Mars have taken a step closer thanks to hibernating zebrafish - Euronews

Take That is the next big act in line for a Las Vegas residency.

Lead singer Gary Barlow has confirmed a show is in the works and that negotiations with venues are under way.

However, he cautioned that the British boy bands concerts will only take place once its safe to do so.

"Covid-19 has got in our way a bit because we were going to do a little try out period, just like six shows across a week, he told UK publication Music Week.

But we've got possibilities of two hotels there and I think we can go twice a year."

While dates have not yet been released, the news is another welcome sign that the party city, known for its lavish residencies by scores of pop hitmakers, is ramping up again.

This includes the opening of a new 5,000-seat theatre at Resorts World with residency concerts by Celine Dion, Carrie Underwood, Katy Perry and Luke Bryan to begin from November and run until March 2022. More details will be announced soon.

Until then, music lovers can savour the return of big-ticket acts to the city that range from pop and soul to RnB.

Here are some of the stars performing a residency in Vegas this year.

After wowing a global television audience as part of March's Grammy Awards, the diminutive singer brings his 24K Magic to MGM Resorts for six shows between Saturday, July 3 and Saturday, July 24. The hitmaker, who has released three studio albums, has an impressive catalogue to show off.

For hotel package details with meet and greet options, visit mgmresorts.com

He sings like a dream, dances like Michael Jackson and has two decades worth of hits: RnB star Usher is a perfect fit for a popular Vegas residency. The Yeah Yeahsinger is set to perform 10 shows at Caesars Palace, beginning from Saturday, July 16 until Saturday, August 14, before returning for four back-to-back shows from Tuesday, December 28 to Saturday, January 1.

Tickets from $59 at ticketmaster.com

The guitar legend, who has won 10 Grammy Awards, brings his signature riffs, hits and instrumental works to the city for a series of 22 shows. Expect Santana and band, including top singers, to perform the likes of Smooth, Oye Como Va and Put Your Lights On.

Tickets from $99.50 at concerts.livenation.com

After selling out his past three residences, singer and American Idol judge Lionel Richie says Hello once again to Vegas with three batches of monthly shows that will cover his five-decade career. Expect hits performed on the night to include All Night Long, Easy and Endless Love.

Tickets from $138 at ticketmaster.com

Named after her biggest hit with former band No Doubt, the Just a Girl show tells Stefani's life through song, with early group hits such as Don't Speak and Hella Good to solo stardom with Hollaback Girl and Sweet Escape.

Tickets from $40 at ticketmaster.com

As regional fans from UAE to Morocco can attest, Sting can play a two-hour concert and only begin to scratch the surface of his massive body of hits scored from his time with The Police and as a solo artist. Therefore, his Las Vegas residency is an apt platform to explore that immense catalogue.

Tickets from $59 at ticketmaster.com

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Six Las Vegas residency shows to see: from Bruno Mars and Sting to Lionel Richie and Gwen Stefani - The National

Recent volcanic activity spotted by NASA on Mars 

The latest observations show proof of volcanic eruptions in the past 50,000 years on the planet. That seems like a lot but its a short period if you look at the big picture and the age of planets. The earliest recorded human appearance was seen about 300,000 years ago, which is 98.8% of the time after the Big Bang so the volcanic eruptions on Mars have happened for less than 20% of the time since humans first appeared on Earth.

The earliest records of volcanic activity on Mars can be seen as far as four billion years ago but that activity seems to be spaced out, unlike the latest findings. Smaller eruptions were recorded as far as 4 million years ago too. Until now, there was almost no evidence to suggest that volcanic, as well as other geological activity, has continued since then.

Elysium Planitia, a plain on the equator of Mars, has been recorded to show fissure-fed streams of lava that range from 500 million to 2.5 million years old. The newer geological activity has been noticed south of this location with several major volcanoes showing signs of recent activity. Debris from eruptions has been seen in a 32 kilometre or 20-mile radius.

The debris was found to be caused due to pyroclastic flow which is caused by massive pressure under the surface. One of the most popular cases of this force on Earth is what happened to the city of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Mars has shown several instances of such events over 3 billion years ago around Olympus Mons, which is the largest mountain in our Solar system and stood taller than all other Martian volcanoes. Water, melted from permafrost on the surface mixing with the magma oozing out can cause an explosive change in pressure and result in such an effect. Water and magma can cause an extremely volatile reaction similar to pouring an accelerant on a fire. The force is so powerful that debris was thrown 10 kilometres into the air.

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NASAs InSight Mars lander may have discovered active volcanoes on the red planet - Times Now

China's Zhurong Mars rover, mounted atop a rocket-powered lander, dropped away from its orbiting Tianwen-1 mothership Friday and descended to touchdown on the red planet, official news agencies confirmed, a superpower feat that highlights the growing prowess of the Chinese space program.

The China National Space Administration confirmed Zhurong, named after the god of fire in Chinese mythology, landed on a broad plain known as Utopia Planitia Friday at 7:18 p.m. EDT (7:18 a.m. Saturday Beijing time) after a fiery plunge through the thin martian atmosphere.

Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA's director of space science at NASA Headquarters, congratulated China on the successful landing, tweeting, "together with the global science community, I look forward to the important contributions this mission will make to humanity's understanding of the Red Planet."

Like NASA's Perseverance rover before it, Zhurong relied on a heat shield and protective aeroshell to protect it from the extreme temperatures generated after hitting the atmosphere at nearly three miles per second. Once through the plasma heating zone, a large parachute presumably unfurled as planned, dramatically slowing the craft to sub-sonic velocities.

Finally, about seven minutes after hitting the atmosphere, the lander was programmed to fall free of its parachute, firing small rocket engines for a powered descent to the surface.

After extensive tests and checkout China has not revealed the rover's schedule two ramps will unfurl, allowing the six-wheel rover to roll off the lander's upper deck and down onto the surface for at least three months of robotic exploration.

"Tianwen-1 is going to orbit, land and release a rover all on the very first try," mission managers wrote before launch in the journal Nature Astronomy. "No planetary missions have ever been implemented in this way. If successful, it would signify a major technical breakthrough."

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The Tianwen-1 orbiter and Zhurong lander arrived in orbit around Mars on February 10, seven months after launch from Wenchang Satellite Launch Center on Hainan Island in the South China Sea. Eight days later, NASA's $2.4 billion Perseverance rover successfully landed in Jezero crater on the edge of Utopia Planitia.

The nuclear-powered Perseverance is NASA's ninth and most technologically advanced Mars lander to successfully reach the surface, carrying a suite of sophisticated cameras, spectrometers and other instruments designed to search for signs of past microbial life.

It also carries a complex sample caching mechanism to collect rock and soil samples for eventual return to Earth and deployed a small helicopter Ingenuity that has carried out five successful test flights to date.

Tianwen-1 is the first all-Chinese mission to the red planet and its most sophisticated interplanetary probe to date. While not in the same league with Perseverance, the combination of a powerful orbiter and surface rover for China's first attempt at Mars is a harbinger of more ambitious missions to come.

Only two other nations the United States and the Soviet Union have ever landed spacecraft on Mars. NASA's record stands at nine successful landings in 10 attempts while Russia endured eight lander failures with just one partial success.

"There is certainly life on Mars! We're the life of the party!" the Chinese space agency tweeted.

The Tianwen-1 mother ship, which will remain in orbit around the martian poles throughout its two-year mission, is equipped with seven instruments, including high- and medium-resolution cameras; a ground-penetrating radar; a mineralogy spectrometer; a magnetometer; and two charged particle detectors.

The 530-pound rover, roughly the size of NASA's Spirit and Opportunity rovers that landed on Mars in 2004, is equipped with six instruments, including a multi-spectral camera, a terrain camera, a ground-penetrating radar, magnetic field detector, meteorology sensors and others.

As with Perseverance, Chinese flight controllers will not be able to operate the Zhurong rover in realtime. Mars and Earth are currently separated by 198 million miles and radio signals, traveling at 186,000 miles per second, take nearly 18 minutes to cross the gulf.

Instead, flight controllers will uplink commands for the rover and then await the results, relayed back to Earth through the Tianwen-1 orbiter.

China has successfully sent two rovers to the moon, including one that landed on the never-before-visited far side. An attempt to send an orbiter to Mars atop a Russian rocket in 2011 ended in failure when the Zenit booster malfunctioned.

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In major milestone, China successfully lands Zhurong rover ...

Overview of the exploration of Mars

The planet Mars has been explored remotely by spacecraft. Probes sent from Earth, beginning in the late 20th century, have yielded a large increase in knowledge about the Martian system, focused primarily on understanding its geology and habitability potential.[1] Engineering interplanetary journeys is complicated and the exploration of Mars has experienced a high failure rate, especially the early attempts. Roughly sixty percent of all spacecraft destined for Mars failed before completing their missions and some failed before their observations could begin. Some missions have met with unexpected success, such as the twin Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity which operated for years beyond their specification.[2]

As of May2021[update], there are three operational rovers on the surface of Mars, the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers, both operated by the United States of America space agency NASA, as well as the Zhurong rover, part of the Tianwen-1 mission by the China National Space Administration (CNSA).[3][4] There are eight orbiters surveying the planet: Mars Odyssey, Mars Express, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Orbiter Mission, MAVEN, the Trace Gas Orbiter, the Tianwen-1 orbiter, and the Hope Mars Mission, which have contributed massive amounts of information about Mars. The stationary lander InSight is investigating the deep interior of Mars. No sample return missions have been attempted for Mars and an attempted return mission for Mars' moon Phobos (Fobos-Grunt) failed at launch in 2011.[5] In all, there are 12 probes currently surveying Mars, with a 13th, the Ingenuity helicopter, which has completed its 5 planned flights.

The next missions expected to arrive at Mars are:

Mars has long been the subject of human interest. Early telescopic observations revealed color changes on the surface that were attributed to seasonal vegetation and apparent linear features were ascribed to intelligent design. Further telescopic observations found two moons, Phobos and Deimos, polar ice caps and the feature now known as Olympus Mons, the Solar System's second tallest mountain. The discoveries piqued further interest in the study and exploration of the red planet. Mars is a rocky planet, like Earth, that formed around the same time, yet with only half the diameter of Earth, and a far thinner atmosphere; it has a cold and desert-like surface.[6]

One way the surface of Mars has been categorized, is by thirty "quadrangles", with each quadrangle named for a prominent physiographic feature within that quadrangle.[7][8]

The minimum-energy launch windows for a Martian expedition occur at intervals of approximately two years and two months (specifically 780 days, the planet's synodic period with respect to Earth).[11] In addition, the lowest available transfer energy varies on a roughly 16-year cycle.[11] For example, a minimum occurred in the 1969 and 1971 launch windows, rising to a peak in the late 1970s, and hitting another low in 1986 and 1988.[11]

Starting in 1960, the Soviets launched a series of probes to Mars including the first intended flybys and hard (impact) landing (Mars 1962B).[13] The first successful flyby of Mars was on 1415 July 1965, by NASA's Mariner 4.[14] On November 14, 1971, Mariner 9 became the first space probe to orbit another planet when it entered into orbit around Mars.[15] The amount of data returned by probes increased dramatically as technology improved.[13]

The first to contact the surface were two Soviet probes: Mars 2 lander on November 27 and Mars 3 lander on December 2, 1971Mars 2 failed during descent and Mars 3 about twenty seconds after the first Martian soft landing.[16] Mars 6 failed during descent but did return some corrupted atmospheric data in 1974.[17] The 1975 NASA launches of the Viking program consisted of two orbiters, each with a lander that successfully soft landed in 1976. Viking 1 remained operational for six years, Viking 2 for three. The Viking landers relayed the first color panoramas of Mars.[18]

The Soviet probes Phobos 1 and 2 were sent to Mars in 1988 to study Mars and its two moons, with a focus on Phobos. Phobos 1 lost contact on the way to Mars. Phobos 2, while successfully photographing Mars and Phobos, failed before it was set to release two landers to the surface of Phobos.[19]

Mars has a reputation as a difficult space exploration target; just 25 of 55 missions through 2019, or 45.5%, have been fully successful, with a further three partially successful and partially failures.[citation needed] However, of the sixteen missions since 2001, twelve have been successful and eight of these are still operational.

Missions that ended prematurely after Phobos 1 and 2 (1988) include (see Probing difficulties section for more details):

Following the 1993 failure of the Mars Observer orbiter, the NASA Mars Global Surveyor achieved Mars orbit in 1997. This mission was a complete success, having finished its primary mapping mission in early 2001. Contact was lost with the probe in November 2006 during its third extended program, spending exactly 10 operational years in space. The NASA Mars Pathfinder, carrying a robotic exploration vehicle Sojourner, landed in the Ares Vallis on Mars in the summer of 1997, returning many images.[20]

Mars Landing Sites (16 December 2020)

NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter entered Mars orbit in 2001.[21] Odyssey's Gamma Ray Spectrometer detected significant amounts of hydrogen in the upper metre or so of regolith on Mars. This hydrogen is thought to be contained in large deposits of water ice.[22]

The Mars Express mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) reached Mars in 2003. It carried the Beagle 2 lander, which was not heard from after being released and was declared lost in February 2004. Beagle 2 was located in January 2015 by HiRise camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) having landed safely but failed to fully deploy its solar panels and antenna.[23][24] In early 2004, the Mars Express Planetary Fourier Spectrometer team announced the orbiter had detected methane in the Martian atmosphere, a potential biosignature. ESA announced in June 2006 the discovery of aurorae on Mars by the Mars Express.[25]

In January 2004, the NASA twin Mars Exploration Rovers named Spirit (MER-A) and Opportunity (MER-B) landed on the surface of Mars. Both have met and exceeded all their science objectives. Among the most significant scientific returns has been conclusive evidence that liquid water existed at some time in the past at both landing sites. Martian dust devils and windstorms have occasionally cleaned both rovers' solar panels, and thus increased their lifespan.[26] Spirit rover (MER-A) was active until 2010, when it stopped sending data because it got stuck in a sand dune and was unable to reorient itself to recharge its batteries.[5]

On 10 March 2006, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) probe arrived in orbit to conduct a two-year science survey. The orbiter began mapping the Martian terrain and weather to find suitable landing sites for upcoming lander missions. The MRO captured the first image of a series of active avalanches near the planet's north pole in 2008.[27]

Rosetta came within 250km of Mars during its 2007 flyby.[28] Dawn flew by Mars in February 2009 for a gravity assist on its way to investigate Vesta and Ceres.[29]

Phoenix landed on the north polar region of Mars on May 25, 2008.[30] Its robotic arm dug into the Martian soil and the presence of water ice was confirmed on June 20, 2008.[31][32] The mission concluded on November 10, 2008 after contact was lost.[33] In 2008, the price of transporting material from the surface of Earth to the surface of Mars was approximately US$309,000 per kilogram.[34]

The Mars Science Laboratory mission was launched on November 26, 2011 and it delivered the Curiosity rover on the surface of Mars on August 6, 2012 UTC. It is larger and more advanced than the Mars Exploration Rovers, with a velocity of up to 90 meters per hour (295 feet per hour).[35] Experiments include a laser chemical sampler that can deduce the composition of rocks at a distance of 7 meters.[36]

MAVEN orbiter was launched on 18 November 2013, and on 22 September 2014, it was injected into an areocentric elliptic orbit 6,200km (3,900mi) by 150km (93mi) above the planet's surface to study its atmosphere. Mission goals include determining how the planet's atmosphere and water, presumed to have once been substantial, were lost over time.[37]

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launched their Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) on November 5, 2013, and it was inserted into Mars orbit on September 24, 2014. India's ISRO is the fourth space agency to reach Mars, after the Soviet space program, NASA and ESA.[38] India successfully placed a spacecraft into Mars orbit, and became the first country to do so in its maiden attempt.[39]

The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter arrived at Mars in 2016 and deployed the Schiaparelli EDM lander, a test lander. Schiaparelli crashed on surface, but it transmitted key data during its parachute descent, so the test was declared a partial success.[40]

The following entails a brief overview of Mars exploration, oriented towards orbiters and flybys; see also Mars landing and Mars rover.

Between 1960 and 1969, the Soviet Union launched nine probes intended to reach Mars. They all failed: three at launch; three failed to reach near-Earth orbit; one during the burn to put the spacecraft into trans-Mars trajectory; and two during the interplanetary orbit.

The Mars 1M programs (sometimes dubbed Marsnik in Western media) was the first Soviet unmanned spacecraft interplanetary exploration program, which consisted of two flyby probes launched towards Mars in October 1960, Mars 1960A and Mars 1960B (also known as Korabl 4 and Korabl 5 respectively). After launch, the third stage pumps on both launchers were unable to develop enough pressure to commence ignition, so Earth parking orbit was not achieved. The spacecraft reached an altitude of 120km before reentry.

Mars 1962A was a Mars flyby mission, launched on October 24, 1962 and Mars 1962B an intended first Mars lander mission, launched in late December of the same year (1962). Both failed from either breaking up as they were going into Earth orbit or having the upper stage explode in orbit during the burn to put the spacecraft into trans-Mars trajectory.[5]

Mars 1 (1962 Beta Nu 1), an automatic interplanetary spacecraft launched to Mars on November 1, 1962, was the first probe of the Soviet Mars probe program to achieve interplanetary orbit. Mars 1 was intended to fly by the planet at a distance of about 11,000km and take images of the surface as well as send back data on cosmic radiation, micrometeoroid impacts and Mars' magnetic field, radiation environment, atmospheric structure, and possible organic compounds.[41][42] Sixty-one radio transmissions were held, initially at 2-day intervals and later at 5-day intervals, from which a large amount of interplanetary data was collected. On 21 March 1963, when the spacecraft was at a distance of 106,760,000km from Earth, on its way to Mars, communications ceased due to failure of its antenna orientation system.[41][42]

In 1964, both Soviet probe launches, of Zond 1964A on June 4, and Zond 2 on November 30, (part of the Zond program), resulted in failures. Zond 1964A had a failure at launch, while communication was lost with Zond 2 en route to Mars after a mid-course maneuver, in early May 1965.[5]

In 1969, and as part of the Mars probe program, the Soviet Union prepared two identical 5-ton orbiters called M-69, dubbed by NASA as Mars 1969A and Mars 1969B. Both probes were lost in launch-related complications with the newly developed Proton rocket.[43]

The USSR intended to have the first artificial satellite of Mars beating the planned American Mariner 8 and Mariner 9 Mars orbiters. In May 1971, one day after Mariner 8 malfunctioned at launch and failed to reach orbit, Cosmos 419 (Mars 1971C), a heavy probe of the Soviet Mars program M-71, also failed to launch. This spacecraft was designed as an orbiter only, while the next two probes of project M-71, Mars 2 and Mars 3, were multipurpose combinations of an orbiter and a lander with small skis-walking rovers that would be the first planet rovers outside the Moon. They were successfully launched in mid-May 1971 and reached Mars about seven months later. On November 27, 1971 the lander of Mars 2 crash-landed due to an on-board computer malfunction and became the first man-made object to reach the surface of Mars. On 2 December 1971, the Mars 3 lander became the first spacecraft to achieve a soft landing, but its transmission was interrupted after 14.5 seconds.[44]

The Mars 2 and 3 orbiters sent back a relatively large volume of data covering the period from December 1971 to March 1972, although transmissions continued through to August. By 22 August 1972, after sending back data and a total of 60 pictures, Mars 2 and 3 concluded their missions. The images and data enabled creation of surface relief maps, and gave information on the Martian gravity and magnetic fields.[45]

In 1973, the Soviet Union sent four more probes to Mars: the Mars 4 and Mars 5 orbiters and the Mars 6 and Mars 7 flyby/lander combinations. All missions except Mars 7 sent back data, with Mars 5 being most successful. Mars 5 transmitted just 60 images before a loss of pressurization in the transmitter housing ended the mission. Mars 6 lander transmitted data during descent, but failed upon impact. Mars 4 flew by the planet at a range of 2200km returning one swath of pictures and radio occultation data, which constituted the first detection of the nightside ionosphere on Mars.[46] Mars 7 probe separated prematurely from the carrying vehicle due to a problem in the operation of one of the onboard systems (attitude control or retro-rockets) and missed the planet by 1,300 kilometres (8.7106au).[citation needed]

In 1964, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory made two attempts at reaching Mars. Mariner 3 and Mariner 4 were identical spacecraft designed to carry out the first flybys of Mars. Mariner 3 was launched on November 5, 1964, but the shroud encasing the spacecraft atop its rocket failed to open properly, dooming the mission. Three weeks later, on November 28, 1964, Mariner 4 was launched successfully on a 7-month voyage to Mars.[citation needed]

Mariner 4 flew past Mars on July 14, 1965, providing the first close-up photographs of another planet. The pictures, gradually played back to Earth from a small tape recorder on the probe, showed impact craters. It provided radically more accurate data about the planet; a surface atmospheric pressure of about 1% of Earth's and daytime temperatures of 100C (148F) were estimated. No magnetic field[47][48] or Martian radiation belts[49] were detected. The new data meant redesigns for then planned Martian landers, and showed life would have a more difficult time surviving there than previously anticipated.[50][51][52][53]

NASA continued the Mariner program with another pair of Mars flyby probes, Mariner 6 and 7. They were sent at the next launch window, and reached the planet in 1969. During the following launch window the Mariner program again suffered the loss of one of a pair of probes. Mariner 9 successfully entered orbit about Mars, the first spacecraft ever to do so, after the launch time failure of its sister ship, Mariner 8. When Mariner 9 reached Mars in 1971, it and two Soviet orbiters (Mars 2 and Mars 3) found that a planet-wide dust storm was in progress. The mission controllers used the time spent waiting for the storm to clear to have the probe rendezvous with, and photograph, Phobos. When the storm cleared sufficiently for Mars' surface to be photographed by Mariner 9, the pictures returned represented a substantial advance over previous missions. These pictures were the first to offer more detailed evidence that liquid water might at one time have flowed on the planetary surface. They also finally discerned the true nature of many Martian albedo features. For example, Nix Olympica was one of only a few features that could be seen during the planetary duststorm, revealing it to be the highest mountain (volcano, to be exact) on any planet in the entire Solar System, and leading to its reclassification as Olympus Mons.[citation needed]

The Viking program launched Viking 1 and Viking 2 spacecraft to Mars in 1975; The program consisted of two orbiters and two landers these were the second and third spacecraft to successfully land on Mars.

The primary scientific objectives of the lander mission were to search for biosignatures and observe meteorologic, seismic and magnetic properties of Mars. The results of the biological experiments on board the Viking landers remain inconclusive, with a reanalysis of the Viking data published in 2012 suggesting signs of microbial life on Mars.[54][55]

The Viking orbiters revealed that large floods of water carved deep valleys, eroded grooves into bedrock, and traveled thousands of kilometers. Areas of branched streams, in the southern hemisphere, suggest that rain once fell.[56][57][58]

Mars Pathfinder was a U.S. spacecraft that landed a base station with a roving probe on Mars on July 4, 1997. It consisted of a lander and a small 10.6 kilograms (23lb) wheeled robotic rover named Sojourner, which was the first rover to operate on the surface of Mars.[59][60] In addition to scientific objectives, the Mars Pathfinder mission was also a "proof-of-concept" for various technologies, such as an airbag landing system and automated obstacle avoidance, both later exploited by the Mars Exploration Rovers.[59]

After the 1992 failure of NASA's Mars Observer orbiter, NASA retooled and launched Mars Global Surveyor (MGS). Mars Global Surveyor launched on November 7, 1996, and entered orbit on September 12, 1997. After a year and a half trimming its orbit from a looping ellipse to a circular track around the planet, the spacecraft began its primary mapping mission in March 1999. It observed the planet from a low-altitude, nearly polar orbit over the course of one complete Martian year, the equivalent of nearly two Earth years. Mars Global Surveyor completed its primary mission on January 31, 2001, and completed several extended mission phases.[citation needed]

The mission studied the entire Martian surface, atmosphere, and interior, and returned more data about the red planet than all previous Mars missions combined. The data has been archived and remains available publicly.[61]

Among key scientific findings, Global Surveyor took pictures of gullies and debris flow features that suggest there may be current sources of liquid water, similar to an aquifer, at or near the surface of the planet. Similar channels on Earth are formed by flowing water, but on Mars the temperature is normally too cold and the atmosphere too thin to sustain liquid water. Nevertheless, many scientists hypothesize that liquid groundwater can sometimes surface on Mars, erode gullies and channels, and pool at the bottom before freezing and evaporating.[citation needed]

Magnetometer readings showed that the planet's magnetic field is not globally generated in the planet's core, but is localized in particular areas of the crust. New temperature data and closeup images of the Martian moon Phobos showed that its surface is composed of powdery material at least 1 metre (3feet) thick, caused by millions of years of meteoroid impacts. Data from the spacecraft's laser altimeter gave scientists their first 3-D views of Mars' north polar ice cap.[citation needed]

Faulty software uploaded to the vehicle in June 2006 caused the spacecraft to orient its solar panels incorrectly several months later, resulting in battery overheating and subsequent failure.[62] On November 5, 2006 MGS lost contact with Earth.[63] NASA ended efforts to restore communication on January 28, 2007.[64]

In 2001, NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter arrived at Mars. Its mission is to use spectrometers and imagers to hunt for evidence of past or present water and volcanic activity on Mars. In 2002, it was announced that the probe's gamma-ray spectrometer and neutron spectrometer had detected large amounts of hydrogen, indicating that there are vast deposits of water ice in the upper three meters of Mars' soil within 60 latitude of the south pole.[citation needed]

On June 2, 2003, the European Space Agency's Mars Express set off from Baikonur Cosmodrome to Mars. The Mars Express craft consists of the Mars Express Orbiter and the stationary lander Beagle 2. The lander carried a digging device and the smallest mass spectrometer created to date, as well as a range of other devices, on a robotic arm in order to accurately analyze soil beneath the dusty surface to look for biosignatures and biomolecules.[citation needed]

The orbiter entered Mars orbit on December 25, 2003, and Beagle 2 entered Mars' atmosphere the same day. However, attempts to contact the lander failed. Communications attempts continued throughout January, but Beagle 2 was declared lost in mid-February, and a joint inquiry was launched by the UK and ESA. The Mars Express Orbiter confirmed the presence of water ice and carbon dioxide ice at the planet's south pole, while NASA had previously confirmed their presence at the north pole of Mars.[citation needed]

The lander's fate remained a mystery until it was located intact on the surface of Mars in a series of images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.[65][66] The images suggest that two of the spacecraft's four solar panels failed to deploy, blocking the spacecraft's communications antenna. Beagle 2 is the first British and first European probe to achieve a soft landing on Mars.[citation needed]

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Mission (MER), started in 2003, was a robotic space mission involving two rovers, Spirit (MER-A) and Opportunity, (MER-B) that explored the Martian surface geology. The mission's scientific objective was to search for and characterize a wide range of rocks and soils that hold clues to past water activity on Mars. The mission was part of NASA's Mars Exploration Program, which includes three previous successful landers: the two Viking program landers in 1976; and Mars Pathfinder probe in 1997.[citation needed]

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) is a multipurpose spacecraft designed to conduct reconnaissance and exploration of Mars from orbit. The US$720 million spacecraft was built by Lockheed Martin under the supervision of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, launched August 12, 2005, and entered Mars orbit on March 10, 2006.[68]

The MRO contains a host of scientific instruments such as the HiRISE camera, CTX camera, CRISM, and SHARAD. The HiRISE camera is used to analyze Martian landforms, whereas CRISM and SHARAD can detect water, ice, and minerals on and below the surface. Additionally, MRO is paving the way for upcoming generations of spacecraft through daily monitoring of Martian weather and surface conditions, searching for future landing sites, and testing a new telecommunications system that enable it to send and receive information at an unprecedented bitrate, compared to previous Mars spacecraft. Data transfer to and from the spacecraft occurs faster than all previous interplanetary missions combined and allows it to serve as an important relay satellite for other missions.[citation needed]

The ESA Rosetta space probe mission to the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko flew within 250km of Mars on February 25, 2007, in a gravitational slingshot designed to slow and redirect the spacecraft.[69]

The NASA Dawn spacecraft used the gravity of Mars in 2009 to change direction and velocity on its way to Vesta, and tested out Dawn's cameras and other instruments on Mars.[70]

On November 8, 2011, Russia's Roscosmos launched an ambitious mission called Fobos-Grunt. It consisted of a lander aimed to retrieve a sample back to Earth from Mars' moon Phobos, and place the Chinese Yinghuo-1 probe in Mars' orbit. The Fobos-Grunt mission suffered a complete control and communications failure shortly after launch and was left stranded in low Earth orbit, later falling back to Earth.[71] The Yinghuo-1 satellite and Fobos-Grunt underwent destructive re-entry on January 15, 2012, finally disintegrating over the Pacific Ocean.[72][73][74]

The NASA Mars Science Laboratory mission with its rover named Curiosity, was launched on November 26, 2011,[75][76] and landed on Mars on August 6, 2012 on Aeolis Palus in Gale Crater. The rover carries instruments designed to look for past or present conditions relevant to the past or present habitability of Mars.[77][78][79][80]

NASA's MAVEN is an orbiter mission to study the upper atmosphere of Mars.[81] It will also serve as a communications relay satellite for robotic landers and rovers on the surface of Mars. MAVEN was launched 18 November 2013 and reached Mars on 22 September 2014.[citation needed]

The Mars Orbiter Mission, also called Mangalyaan, was launched on 5 November 2013 by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).[82] It was successfully inserted into Martian orbit on 24 September 2014. The mission is a technology demonstrator, and as secondary objective, it will also study the Martian atmosphere. This is India's first mission to Mars, and with it, ISRO became the fourth space agency to successfully reach Mars after the Soviet Union, NASA (USA) and ESA (Europe). It also made ISRO the second space agency to reach Mars orbit on its first attempt (the first national one, after the international ESA), and also the first Asian country to successfully send an orbiter to Mars. It was completed in a record low budget of $71 million,[83][84] making it the least-expensive Mars mission to date.[85]

The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter is an atmospheric research orbiter built in collaboration between ESA and Roscosmos. It was injected into Mars orbit on 19 October 2016 to gain a better understanding of methane (CH4) and other trace gases present in the Martian atmosphere that could be evidence for possible biological or geological activity. The Schiaparelli EDM lander was destroyed when trying to land on the surface of Mars.[86]

In August 2012, NASA selected InSight, a $425 million lander mission with a heat flow probe and seismometer, to determine the deep interior structure of Mars.[87][88][89] Two flyby CubeSats called MarCO were launched with InSight on 5 May 2018[90] to provide real-time telemetry during the entry and landing of InSight. The CubeSats separated from the Atlas V booster 1.5 hours after launch and traveled their own trajectories to Mars.[91][92][93] InSight landed successfully on Mars on 26 November 2018.[94]

The United Arab Emirates launched the Hope Mars Mission, in July 2020 on the Japanese H-IIA booster.[95] It was successfully placed into orbit on 9 February 2021. It is studying the Martian atmosphere and weather.

Tianwen-1 is a Chinese mission, launched on 23 July 2020. It includes an orbiter, a lander and a 240 kilograms rover.[96] The orbiter was placed into orbit on 10 February 2021. The Zhurong rover successfully soft landed on 14 May 2021 (UTC).[4]

The Mars 2020 mission by NASA was launched on 30 July 2020 on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral. It is based on the Mars Science Laboratory design. The scientific payload is focused on astrobiology.[97] It includes Perseverance rover and Mars Helicopter Ingenuity, which undertook flights successfully. Unlike older rovers that relied on solar power, Perseverance is nuclear powered, to survive longer than its predecessors in this harsh, dusty environment. The car-size rover weighs about 1 ton, with a robotic arm that reaches about 7 feet, zoom cameras, a chemical analyzer and a rock drill.[98][99]

After traveling 293 million miles to reach Mars over the course of more than six months, Perseverance successfully landed on February 18, 2021. Its initial mission is set for at least one Martian year, or 687 Earth days. It will search for signs of ancient life and explore the red planet's surface.[100][101]

Other future mission concepts include polar probes, Martian aircraft and a network of small meteorological stations.[110] Longterm areas of study may include Martian lava tubes, resource utilization, and electronic charge carriers in rocks.[114][115] Micromissions are another possibility, such as piggybacking a small spacecraft on an Ariane 5 rocket and using a lunar gravity assist to get to Mars.[116]

The human exploration of Mars has been an aspiration since the earliest days of modern rocketry; Robert H. Goddard credits the idea of reaching Mars as his own inspiration to study the physics and engineering of space flight.[117] Proposals for human exploration of Mars have been made throughout the history of space exploration; currently there are multiple active plans and programs to put humans on Mars within the next ten to thirty years, both governmental and private, some of which are listed below.

Human exploration by the United States was identified as a long-term goal in the Vision for Space Exploration announced in 2004 by then US President George W. Bush.[118] The planned Orion spacecraft would be used to send a human expedition to Earth's moon by 2020 as a stepping stone to a Mars expedition. On September 28, 2007, NASA administrator Michael D. Griffin stated that NASA aims to put a person on Mars by 2037.[119]

On December 2, 2014, NASA's Advanced Human Exploration Systems and Operations Mission Director Jason Crusan and Deputy Associate Administrator for Programs James Reuthner announced tentative support for the Boeing "Affordable Mars Mission Design" including radiation shielding, centrifugal artificial gravity, in-transit consumable resupply, and a lander which can return.[120][121] Reuthner suggested that if adequate funding was forthcoming, the proposed mission would be expected in the early 2030s.[122]

On October 8, 2015, NASA published its official plan for human exploration and colonization of Mars. They called it "Journey to Mars". The plan operates through three distinct phases leading up to fully sustained colonization.[123]

On August 28, 2015, NASA funded a year long simulation to study the effects of a year long Mars mission on six scientists. The scientists lived in a bio dome on a Mauna Loa mountain in Hawaii with limited connection to the outside world and were only allowed outside if they were wearing spacesuits.[125][126]

NASAs human Mars exploration plans have evolved through the NASA Mars Design Reference Missions, a series of design studies for human exploration of Mars.

In 2017 the focus of NASA shifted to a return to the Moon by 2024 with the Artemis program, a flight to Mars could follow after this project.

The long-term goal of the private corporation SpaceX is the establishment of routine flights to Mars to enable colonization.[127][128][129] To this end, the company is developing Starship, a spacecraft capable of crew transportation to Mars and other celestial bodies, along with its booster Super Heavy. In 2017 SpaceX announced plans to send two uncrewed Starships to Mars by 2022, followed by two more uncrewed flights and two crewed flights in 2024.[128] Starship is planned to have a payload of at least 100 tonnes.[130] Starship is designed to use a combination of aerobraking and propulsive descent, utilizing fuel produced from a Mars (in situ resource utilization) facility.[128] As of mid 2021, the Starship development program has seen successful testing of several Starship prototypes.[131]

Mars Direct, a low-cost human mission proposed by Robert Zubrin, founder of the Mars Society, would use heavy-lift Saturn V class rockets, such as the Ares V, to skip orbital construction, LEO rendezvous, and lunar fuel depots. A modified proposal, called "Mars to Stay", involves not returning the first immigrant explorers immediately, if ever (see Colonization of Mars).[118][119][132][133]

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