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Mars rover
Robotic vehicle for Mars surface exploration

A Mars rover is a remote-controlled vehicle designed to explore the surface of Mars, offering advantages over stationary landers by covering more territory and targeting interesting features. Managed mainly by the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, there have been six successful rovers, including Sojourner, Spirit, Opportunity, Curiosity, Perseverance, and China’s Zhurong. Studies by rovers like Opportunity and Curiosity search for evidence of ancient life, organic carbon, and habitable environments on Mars. These missions advance understanding of robotic exploration and Mars’ potential habitability.

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Missions

See also: List of missions to Mars

Multiple rovers have been dispatched to Mars:

Active

Past

  • Sojourner rover, Mars Pathfinder, landed successfully on July 4, 1997. Communications were lost on September 27, 1997. Sojourner had traveled a distance of just over 100 meters (330 ft).18
  • Spirit (MER-A), Mars Exploration Rover (MER), launched on June 10, 2003,19 and landed on January 4, 2004. Nearly six years after the original mission limit, Spirit had covered a total distance of 7.73 km (4.80 mi) but its wheels became trapped in sand.20 The last communication received from the rover was on March 22, 2010, and NASA ceased attempts to re-establish communication on May 25, 2011.21
  • Opportunity (MER-B), Mars Exploration Rover, launched on July 7, 200322 and landed on January 25, 2004. Opportunity surpassed the previous records for longevity at 5,352 sols (5498 Earth days from landing to mission end; 15 Earth years or 8 Martian years) and covered 45.16 km (28.06 mi). The rover sent its last status on 10 June 2018 when a global 2018 Mars dust storm blocked the sunlight needed to recharge its batteries.23 After hundreds of attempts to reactivate the rover, NASA declared the mission complete on February 13, 2019.
  • Zhurong launched with the Tianwen-1 CNSA Mars mission on July 23, 2020, landed on May 14, 2021, in the southern region of Utopia Planitia, and deployed on May 22, 2021, while dropping a remote selfie camera on 1 June 2021.2425 Designed for a lifespan of 90 sols (93 Earth days),26 Zhurong had been active for 347 sols (356.5 days) since its deployment and traveled on Mars's surface for 1,921 m (6,302 ft).27 Since 20 May 2022, the rover was deactivated due to approaching sandstorms and Martian winter.2829 But the larger-than-expected build-up of dust covering its solar panels prevented it from self-reactivation. On 25 April 2023, the mission designer Zhang Rongqiao announced that the buildup of dust from the last inactivation is greater than planned, indicating the rover could be inactive "forever".30

Failed

  • Mars 2, PrOP-M rover, 1971, Mars 2 landing failed, destroying Prop-M with it. The Mars 2 and 3 spacecraft from the Soviet Union had identical 4.5 kilograms (9.9 lb) Prop-M rovers. They were to move on skis while connected to the landers with cables.31
  • Mars 3, PrOP-M rover, landed successfully on December 2, 1971. 4.5 kilograms (9.9 lb) rover tethered to the Mars 3 lander. Lost when the Mars 3 lander stopped communicating about 110 seconds after landing.32 The loss of communication may have been due to the extremely powerful Martian dust storm taking place at the time, or an issue with the Mars 3 orbiter's ability to relay communications.

Planned

  • ESA's ExoMars rover Rosalind Franklin was confirmed technically ready for launch in March 2022 and planned to launch in September 2022, but due to the suspension of cooperation with Roscosmos this is delayed until at least 2028. A fast-track study was started to determine alternative launch options.33
  • The Russian Moscow Aviation Institute and the Indian IIT are jointly developing a fixed-wing Mars UAV which as of March 2023 is scheduled for launch in late 2025.34

Proposed

  • The JAXA Melos rover was supposed to be launched in 2022. JAXA has not given an update since 2015.
  • NASA Mars Geyser Hopper
  • ISRO has proposed a Mars rover as part of Mars Lander Mission, its second Mars mission in 2030.35
  • Mars Tumbleweed Rover, a spherical wind-propelled rover. The concept was first investigated by NASA in the early 2000s.3637 Since 2017, Team Tumbleweed has been developing a series of Tumbleweed Rovers. The research organization aims to land a swarm of 90 Tumbleweed rovers on the Martian surface by 2034.38

Undeveloped

Timeline of rover surface operations

Examples of instruments

Examples of instruments onboard landed rovers include:

NASA Mars rover goals

Circa the 2010s, NASA had established certain goals for the rover program.

NASA distinguishes between "mission" objectives and "science" objectives. Mission objectives are related to progress in space technology and development processes. Science objectives are met by the instruments during their mission in space.

The science instruments are chosen and designed based on the science objectives and goals. The primary goal of the Spirit and Opportunity rovers was to investigate "the history of water on Mars".45

The four science goals of NASA's long-term Mars Exploration Program are:

Panorama of Husband Hill taken by the Spirit rover (November 2005) Opportunity rover later visited its heat shield impact site; it was ejected during the rover's descent and impacted the surface separately.

See also

References

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  2. "Special Issue - Table of Contents - Exploring Martian Habitability". Science. 343 (6169): 345–452. January 24, 2014. Retrieved 24 January 2014. https://www.science.org/toc/science/343/6169 ↩

  3. "Special Collection - Curiosity - Exploring Martian Habitability". Science. January 24, 2014. Retrieved January 24, 2014. https://www.science.org/action/doSearch?AllField=Curiosity+Mars ↩

  4. Grotzinger, J.P.; et al. (January 24, 2014). "A Habitable Fluvio-Lacustrine Environment at Yellowknife Bay, Gale Crater, Mars". Science. 343 (6169): 1242777. Bibcode:2014Sci...343A.386G. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.455.3973. doi:10.1126/science.1242777. PMID 24324272. S2CID 52836398. /wiki/Science_(journal) ↩

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  6. Grotzinger, John P. (January 24, 2014). "Introduction to Special Issue - Habitability, Taphonomy, and the Search for Organic Carbon on Mars". Science. 343 (6169): 386–387. Bibcode:2014Sci...343..386G. doi:10.1126/science.1249944. PMID 24458635. https://doi.org/10.1126%2Fscience.1249944 ↩

  7. Changela, Hitesh G.; Chatzitheodoridis, Elias; Antunes, Andre; Beaty, David; Bouw, Kristian; Bridges, John C.; Capova, Klara Anna; Cockell, Charles S.; Conley, Catharine A.; Dadachova, Ekaterina; Dallas, Tiffany D. (December 2021). "Mars: new insights and unresolved questions". International Journal of Astrobiology. 20 (6): 394–426. arXiv:2112.00596. Bibcode:2021IJAsB..20..394C. doi:10.1017/S1473550421000276. ISSN 1473-5504. S2CID 244773061. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-journal-of-astrobiology/article/mars-new-insights-and-unresolved-questions/F0E43D7EC62EA126262CB66DF069ABA0 ↩

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  11. NASA Staff (27 March 2012). "'Mount Sharp' on Mars Compared to Three Big Mountains on Earth". NASA. Archived from the original on 7 May 2017. Retrieved 31 March 2012. https://web.archive.org/web/20170507134815/https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/pia15292-Fig2.html ↩

  12. Agle, D. C. (28 March 2012). "'Mount Sharp' On Mars Links Geology's Past and Future". NASA. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 31 March 2012. https://web.archive.org/web/20160303205729/http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/news/msl20120328.html ↩

  13. Staff (29 March 2012). "NASA's New Mars Rover Will Explore Towering 'Mount Sharp'". Space.com. Retrieved 30 March 2012. http://www.space.com/15097-mars-mountain-sharp-curiosity-rover.html ↩

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  26. Jones, Andrew (30 July 2021). "China's Zhurong Mars rover scopes out dunes on journey south". Space.com. https://www.space.com/china-mars-rover-zhurong-studies-dunes ↩

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