Chronologie der Marsmissionen

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory, a mobile robot for investigating Mars' past or present ability to sustain microbial life, is in development for a launch opportunity in 2009. This picture is an artist's concept portraying what the advanced rover would look like in Martian terrain, from a side aft angle.

The arm extending from the front of the rover is designed both to position some of the rover's instruments onto selected rocks or soil targets and also to collect samples for analysis by other instruments. Near the base of the arm is a sample preparation and handling system designed to grind samples, such as rock cores or small pebbles, and distribute the material to analytical instruments.

(1965) Zond 2 was an automatic interplanetary station launched from a Tyazheliy Sputnik (64-078A) in Earth parking orbit towards Mars to test space-borne systems and to carry out scientific investigations. The probe carried a descent craft and the same instruments as the Mars 1 flyby spacecraft: a magnetometer probe, television photographic equipment, a spectroreflectometer , radiation sensors (gas-discharge and scintillation counters), a spectrograph to study ozone absorption bands, and a micrometeoroid instrument. The spacecraft had six experimental low-thrust electrojet plasma ion engines that served as actuators of the attitude control system and could be used instead of the gas engines to maintain orientation. Power was provided by two solar panels.

Zond 2 took a long curving trajectory towards Mars to minimize the relative velocity. The electronic ion engines were successfully tested shortly after launch under real space environment conditions over the period December 8-18, 1964. One of the two solar panels failed so only half the anticipated power was available to the spacecraft. After a mid-course maneuver, communications with the spacecraft were lost in early May, 1965. The spacecraft flew by Mars on 6 August 1965 at a distance of 1500 km and a relative speed of 5.62 km/s.

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA19388

NASA's two MarCO CubeSats will be flying past Mars in September 2016 just as NASA's next Mars lander, InSight, is descending through the Martian atmosphere and landing on the surface. MarCO, for Mars Cube One, will provide an experimental communications relay to inform Earth quickly about the landing.

This illustration depicts a moment during the lander's descent when it is transmitting data in the UHF radio band, and the twin MarCO craft are receiving those transmissions while simultaneously relaying the data to Earth in a different radio band. Each of the MarCO twins carries two solar panels for power, and both UHF-band and X-band radio antennas. As a technology demonstration, MarCO could lead to other "bring-your-own-relay" mission designs and also to use of miniature spacecraft for a wide diversity of interplanetary missions.

MarCO is the first interplanetary use of CubeSat technologies for small spacecraft. CubeSats are a class of spacecraft based on a standardized small size and modular use of off-the-shelf technologies to streamline development. Many have been made by university students, and dozens have been launched into Earth orbit using extra payload mass available on launches of larger spacecraft.

The two briefcase-size MarCO CubeSats will ride along with InSight on an Atlas V launch vehicle lifting off in March 2016 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. MarCO is a technology demonstration aspect of the InSight mission and not needed for that mission's success. InSight, an acronym for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, will investigate the deep interior of Mars to advance understanding of how rocky planets, including Earth, formed and evolved.

After launch, the MarCO twins and InSight will be navigated separately to Mars.

https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA22460

This artist concept shows the Mars Helicopter, a small, autonomous rotorcraft, which will travel with NASA's Mars 2020 rover mission, currently scheduled to launch in July 2020, to demonstrate the viability and potential of heavier-than-air vehicles on the Red Planet.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory will build and manage operations of the Mars 2020 rover for the NASA Science Mission Directorate at the agencys headquarters in Washington.

https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA21635

This artist's concept depicts NASA's Mars 2020 rover on the surface of Mars.

The mission takes the next step by not only seeking signs of habitable conditions on Mars in the ancient past, but also searching for signs of past microbial life itself.

The Mars 2020 rover introduces a drill that can collect core samples of the most promising rocks and soils and set them aside on the surface of Mars. A future mission could potentially return these samples to Earth.

Mars 2020 is targeted for launch in July/August 2020 aboard an Atlas V 541 rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory will build and manage operations of the Mars 2020 rover for the NASA Science Mission Directorate at the agency's headquarters in Washington.