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NASA's Curiosity rover, selfie, 2015. A Mars rover is a remote-controlled motor vehicle designed to travel on the surface of Mars. Rovers have several advantages over stationary landers: they examine more territory, they can be directed to interesting features, they can place themselves in sunny positions to weather winter months, and they can advance the knowledge of how to perform very ...
It began in 2003 with the launch of the two rovers to explore the Martian surface and geology; both landed on Mars at separate locations in January 2004. Both rovers far outlived their planned missions of 90 Martian solar days : MER-A Spirit was active until March 22, 2010, [ 1 ] while MER-B Opportunity was active until June 10, 2018.
Opportunity, also known as MER-B (Mars Exploration Rover – B) or MER-1, and nicknamed Oppy, is a robotic rover that was active on Mars from 2004 until 2018. [1] Opportunity was operational on Mars for 5111 sols (14 years, 138 days on Earth).
Perseverance [2] is a car-sized Mars rover designed to explore the Jezero crater on Mars as part of NASA's Mars 2020 mission. It was manufactured by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and launched on July 30, 2020, at 11:50 UTC. [3]
Spirit, also known as MER-A (Mars Exploration Rover – A) or MER-2, is a Mars robotic rover, active from 2004 to 2010. [4] Spirit was operational on Mars for 2208 sols or 3.3 Martian years (2269 days; 6 years, 77 days).
The robotic Sojourner rover reached Mars on July 4, 1997 as part of the Mars Pathfinder mission. Sojourner was operational on Mars for 92 sols (95 Earth days), and was the first wheeled vehicle to operate on an astronomical object other than the Earth or Moon.
Ingenuity, nicknamed Ginny, is an autonomous NASA helicopter that operated on Mars from 2021 to 2024 as part of the Mars 2020 mission. Ingenuity made its first flight on 19 April 2021, demonstrating that flight is possible in the extremely thin atmosphere of Mars, and becoming the first aircraft to conduct a powered and controlled extra-terrestrial flight.
The following table is a partial list of artificial objects on the surface of Mars, consisting of spacecraft which were launched from Earth. Although most are defunct after having served their purpose, the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers are active.