OPENSPACE 22: Rosetta: Making Space History | Page 19

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More than 40 missions have
attempted to reach Mars to
solve the Red Planet’s mysteries
in the last 50 years.
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landing module. Opportunity remains active on the red
planet and has been investigating the huge Endeavour
crater since 2011.
The Phoenix Mars Lander launched in August 2007
and landed in May 2008. The rover has dug through
Martian soil to confirm the presence of water and
ice beneath the surface. However, the largest Mars
lander yet built is the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL),
which delivered the Curiosity rover to Gale crater in
August 2012. The MSL weighed in at about 900 kg
and measured three meters in length. Curiosity found
that the area near its landing site harbored a lake-
and-stream system long ago, demonstrating that
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at least some parts of Mars could have supported
microbial life.
In 2020, Europe will try to repeat the feat of
successfully landing on Mars. The data provided by
the ExoMars 2016 will be essential in helping the 2020
rover avoid the same fate as Schiaparelli.
The 2020 mission of the ExoMars program aims
to deliver a European rover and a Russian surface
platform to Mars in order to search for signs of life. If
successful, this will be the first mission to combine the
capability to move across the surface with the ability
to study Mars in depth.
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Exploring Mars
01. Illustration of Viking
lander on Mars.
02. Mars Pathfinder
lander.
03. Artist’s concept of
Opportunity Rover.
04. Artist’s concept of
Curiosity Rover.
Credit: NASA.
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