The exploration of Mars has taken place over hundreds of years, since it can be visible to an unaided eye, but was aided by the invention and development of the telescope starting in the 1600s. Space probes sent from Earth in the late 1900s yielded a dramatic increase in knowledge about the Martian system.
In 1965 a probe flyby provided radically more accurate data about the planet; a surface atmospheric pressure of about 1% of Earth's and daytime temperatures of -100 degrees Celsius (-148 degrees Fahrenheit) were estimated. No magnetic field[1][2] or Martian radiation belts[3] 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.[4][5][6][7]
It has been an important part of the space exploration programs of Russia, the Soviet Union, the United States, Europe, and Japan. Dozens of robotic spacecraft, including orbiters, landers, and rovers, have been launched toward Mars since the 1960s. These missions were aimed at gathering data about current conditions and answering questions about the history of Mars as well as a preparation for a possible human mission to Mars. The questions raised by the scientific community are expected to not only give a better appreciation of the red planet but also yield further insight into the past, and possible future, of Earth.
The exploration of Mars has come at a considerable financial cost with roughly two-thirds of all spacecraft destined for Mars failing before completing their missions, with some failing before they even begin. Such a high failure rate can be attributed to the complexity and large number of variables involved in an interplanetary journey. As of July 2011, there is one functioning piece of equipment on the surface of Mars beaming signals back to Earth: the Opportunity rover.
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Mars has long been the subject of human fascination. Early telescopic observations revealed color changes on the surface which were originally attributed to seasonal vegetation as well as apparent linear features which were ascribed to intelligent design. These early and erroneous interpretations led to widespread public interest in Mars. Further telescopic observations found Mars' two moons - Phobos and Deimos, the polar ice caps and the feature now known as Olympus Mons, the solar system's tallest mountain.[8] These 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. It is notable, however, that although the planet has only one quarter of the surface area of the Earth, it has about the same land area, since only one quarter of the surface area of the Earth is land.
The amount data returned by probes has increased dramatically as technology improved.[9] For example, Mariner 4 returned 21 images in the 1960s, but Mariner 9 returned 7329 images in the 1970s.[9]
In order to understand the history of the robotic exploration of Mars it is important to note that minimum-energy launch windows occur at intervals of approximately 2.135 years, i.e. 780 days (the planet's synodic period with respect to Earth).
Every 26 Earth months a lower energy Earth to Mars transfer opportunity opens.[10] In addition, the lowest available transfer energy varies on a roughly 16 year cycle, with a minimum in the 1969 and 1971 launch windows, rising to a peak in the late 70s, and hitting another low in 1986 and 1988.[10]
In addition to these minimum-energy trajectories, which occur when the planets are aligned so that the Earth to Mars transfer trajectory goes halfway around the Sun, an alternate trajectory which has been proposed goes first inward toward Venus orbit, and then outward, resulting in a longer trajectory which goes about 360 degrees around the Sun [11].
A brief overview of Mars exploration, oriented towards orbiters and flybys;see also Mars landing.
The Mars 1M program (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 thrust to commence ignition, so Earth parking orbit was not achieved. The spacecraft reached an altitude of 120 km before reentry.
Mars 1962A was a Mars fly-by mission, launched on October 24, 1962 and Mars 1962B a lander mission, launched in late December of the same year 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 the Mars trajectory.
Mars 1 (1962 Beta Nu 1) an automatic interplanetary station launched to Mars on November 1, 1962 was the first probe of the Soviet Mars probe program. Mars 1 was intended to fly by the planet at a distance of about 11,000 km 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. Sixty-one radio transmissions were held, initially at two day intervals and later at 5 days in which a large amount of interplanetary data was collected. On 21 March 1963, when the spacecraft was at a distance of 106,760,000 km from Earth, on its way to Mars, communications ceased due to failure of its antenna orientation system.
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.
The USSR intended to have the first artificial satellite of Mars beating the planned American Mariner 8 and Mariner 9 martian orbiters. But on May 5, 1971 Cosmos 419 (Mars 1971C), a heavy probe of the Soviet Mars program M-71, failed on launch. This spacecraft was designed as an orbiter only, while the second and third probes of project M-71, Mars 2 and Mars 3, were multi-aimed combinations of orbiter and lander.
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 7½-month voyage to the red planet.
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.
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, it and two Soviet orbiters (Mars 2 and Mars 3, see Mars probe program below) 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.
In 1969, the Soviet Union prepared a 5-ton orbiter called M-69. Two copies of the probe were lost in launch related complications caused by problems with the newly developed Proton rockets [12].
In 1971, shortly after the Cosmos 419 probe was lost in the fourth stage of the launch due to issues concerning the failure in the separation of Cosmos' payload from the launch vehicle[13], the Soviet Union successfully sent probes Mars 2 and Mars 3, as part of the Mars probe program. The Mars 2 and 3 orbiters each carried a lander, and they became first known probes to touch down on Mars. They both had technical problems that prevented returning useful scientific data.
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[14].
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 fly-by/lander combinations. All missions except Mars 7 sent back data, with Mars 5 being most successful. Mars 5 transmitted 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 2200 km returning one swath of pictures and radio occultation data, which constituted the first detection of the nightside ionosphere on Mars [15]. Mars 7 probe separated prematurely from the carrying vehicle due to a problem in the operation of one of the onboard systems (altitude control or retro-rockets) and missed the planet by 1300 km.
The Viking program sent Viking 1 and 2 spacecraft to Mars;two orbiters and two landers. The Viking Orbiters caused a revolution in ideas about water on Mars. Huge river valleys were found in many areas. They showed that floods of water carved deep valleys, eroded grooves into bedrock, and traveled thousands of kilometers. Areas of branched streams, in the southern hemisphere, suggested that rain once fell.[16][17][18]
The images below, from the Viking Orbiters, are mosaics of many small, high resolution images. Click on the images for more detail. Some of the pictures are labeled with place names.
After Viking concluded in the early 1980s, a difficult period of failures began.
Two Soviet probes were sent to Mars in 1988 as part of the Phobos program. Phobos 1 operated nominally until an expected communications session on 2 September 1988 failed to occur. The problem was traced to a software error, which deactivated attitude thrusters causing the spacecrafts' solar arrays to no longer point at the Sun, depleting Phobos 1 batteries. Phobos 2 operated nominally throughout its cruise and Mars orbital insertion phases on January 29, 1989, gathering data on the Sun, interplanetary medium, Mars, and Phobos. Shortly before the final phase of the mission, during which the spacecraft was to approach within 50 m of Phobos' surface and release two landers, one a mobile 'hopper', the other a stationary platform, contact with Phobos 2 was lost. The mission ended when the spacecraft signal failed to be successfully reacquired on March 27, 1989. The cause of the failure was determined to be a malfunction of the on-board computer.
Just a few years later Mars Observer failed as it approached Mars. Mars 96, an orbiter launched on November 16, 1996 by Russia failed, when the planned second burn of the Block D-2 fourth stage did not occur.
Following the success of Global Surveyor and Pathfinder, another spate of failures occurred in 1998 and 1999, with the Japanese Nozomi orbiter and NASA's Mars Climate Orbiter, Mars Polar Lander, and Deep Space 2 penetrators all suffering various fatal errors. Mars Climate Orbiter is infamous for Lockheed Martin engineers mixing up the usage of English units with metric units, causing the orbiter to burn up while entering Mars' atmosphere.
After the 1992 failure of NASA's Mars Observer orbiter, NASA retooled and launched Mars Global Surveyor (MGS). This mission was the first successful United States mission, and the first fully successful mission overall, to the red planet in two decades when it launched 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 has 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.
The mission has studied the entire Martian surface, atmosphere, and interior, and has returned more data about the red planet than all other Mars missions combined. These valuable data are archived and available publicly.[19]
Among key scientific findings so far, Global Surveyor has taken 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.
Magnetometer readings show 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 show its surface is composed of powdery material at least 1 metre (3 feet) thick, caused by millions of years of meteoroid impacts. Data from the spacecraft's laser altimeter have given scientists their first 3-D views of Mars' north polar ice cap.
On November 5, 2006 MGS lost contact with Earth and hasn't been heard from since.[20]
In 2001 the run of bad luck ended when NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter arrived. 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.
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 lander Beagle 2. Although the landing probe was not designed to move, it 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.
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. Nevertheless, Mars Express Orbiter confirmed the presence of water ice and carbon dioxide ice at the planet's south pole. NASA had previously confirmed their presence at the north pole of Mars.
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is a multipurpose spacecraft designed to conduct reconnaissance and exploration of Mars from orbit. The $720 million USD spacecraft was built by Lockheed Martin under the supervision of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, launched August 12, 2005, and attained Martian orbit on March 10, 2006.
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.
The ESA Rosetta space probe mission to the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko flew within 250 km of Mars on February 25, 2007 in a gravitational slingshot designed to slow and redirect the spacecraft.[21] The NASA Dawn spacecraft also used the gravity of Mars to change direction and velocity, and did a little science in conjunction with the many probes already there. Dawn passed the red planet in February 2009.
The following is a map of landings on Mars.
The Soviet Union intended to beat the USA by sending landers first in the Mars probe program M-69 in 1969, but both probes of the new heavy 5-ton design, Mars 1969A and Mars 1969B, failed at launch. The first probes to impact and land on Mars were the Soviet Union's Mars 2 and Mars 3, as part of the Mars probe program M-71 in 1971. Each carried a lander. The Mars 2 lander crashed; Mars 3 was the first successful lander but stopped transmitting data and images from the surface after 15 seconds of operation. Mars 6 and Mars 7 landers on the next Soviet Mars probe program M-73 failed their missions in 1974; the first impacted on the surface, while the second missed the planet. The first landers to accomplish their missions were Viking 1 and Viking 2 in 1976.
The high failure rate of missions launched from Earth attempting to explore Mars was informally called as the Mars curse.[22] known as the "Mars Curse" or "Martian Curse". The "Galactic Ghoul"[23] or "Great Galactic Ghoul" is a fictional space monster jokingly said to consume Mars probes, a term coined in 1997 by Time Magazine journalist Donald Neff.[24][25][26] [27] which subsists on a diet of Mars probes.
Of 38 launches from Earth in an attempt to reach the planet, only 19 have succeeded As of November 2011[update], a success rate of 50%. Twelve of the missions included attempts to land on the surface, but only seven transmitted data after landing. The majority of the failed missions occurred in the early years of space exploration and were part of the Soviet and later Russian Mars probe program that suffered several technical difficulties, other than the largely successful Venera program for the exploration of Venus.
Modern missions have an improved success rate; however, the challenge, complexity and length of the missions make it inevitable that failures will occur.[28]
The U.S. NASA Mars exploration program has had a somewhat better record of success in Mars exploration, achieving success in 13 out of 20 missions launched (a 65% success rate), and succeeding in six out of seven (an 86% success rate) lander missions.
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Many people have long advocated a manned mission to Mars as the next logical step for a manned space program after lunar exploration. Aside from the prestige such a mission would bring, advocates argue that humans would easily be able to outperform robotic explorers, justifying the expense. Aerospace engineer Bob Zubrin is one of the proponents of such missions. Some critics contend unmanned robots can perform better than humans at a fraction of the expense. If life exists on Mars, a manned mission could contaminate it by introducing earthly microbes, so robotic exploration would be preferable.[29] A list of hypothetical or proposed manned Mars missions is located at manned mission to Mars. See also, colonization of Mars.
Source: international Mars mission log[30]
| mission type | success rate | success | partial success | launch failure | failed in route | failed to orbit/land |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| flyby | 45% | 5 | 4 | 2 | ||
| orbiter | 50% | 9 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 3 |
| lander | 30% | 3 | 3 | 4 | ||
| rover | 80% | 3 | 1 | 1 | ||
| sample return | 0% | 1 (Phobos) | ||||
| total | 47% | 20 | 3 | 9 | 9 | 8 |
| Mission (1960–1969) | Launch | Arrival at Mars | Termination | Elements | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mars 1960A | 10 October 1960 | 10 October 1960 | Flyby | Launch failure | |
| Mars 1960B | 14 October 1960 | 14 October 1960 | Flyby | Launch failure | |
| Sputnik 22 (Mars 1962A) | 24 October 1962 | 24 October 1962 | Flyby | Broke up shortly after launch | |
| Mars 1 | 1 November 1962 | 21 March 1963 | Flyby | Some data collected, but lost contact before reaching Mars, flyby at approx. 193,000 km | |
| Sputnik 24 (Mars 1962B) | 4 November 1962 | 19 January 1963 | Lander | Failed to leave Earth's orbit | |
| Mariner 3 | 5 November 1964 | 5 November 1964 | Flyby | Failure during launch ruined trajectory | |
| Mariner 4 | 28 November 1964 | 14 July 1965 | 21 December 1967 | Flyby | Success (21 images returned)[9] |
| Zond 2 | 30 November 1964 | May 1965 | Flyby | Communication lost three months before reaching Mars | |
| Mariner 6 | 25 February 1969 | 31 July 1969 | August 1969 | Flyby | Success |
| Mariner 7 | 27 March 1969 | 5 August 1969 | August 1969 | Flyby | Success |
| Mars 1969A | 27 March 1969 | 27 March 1969 | Orbiter | Launch failure | |
| Mars 1969B | 2 April 1969 | 2 April 1969 | Orbiter | Launch failure | |
| Mission (1970–1989) | Launch | Arrival at Mars | Termination | Elements | Result |
| Mariner 8 | 8 May 1971 | 8 May 1971 | Orbiter | Launch failure | |
| Cosmos 419 (Mars 1971C) | 10 May 1971 | 12 May 1971 | Orbiter | Launch failure | |
| Mariner 9 | 30 May 1971 | 13 November 1971 | 27 October 1972 | Orbiter | Success (first successful orbit) |
| Mars 2 | 19 May 1971 | 27 November 1971 | 22 August 1972 | Orbiter | Success |
| 27 November 1971 | Lander, rover[31] | Crashed on surface of Mars | |||
| Mars 3 | 28 May 1971 | 2 December 1971 | 22 August 1972 | Orbiter | Success |
| 2 December 1971 | Lander, rover[31] | Partial success. First successful landing; landed softly but ceased transmission within 15 seconds | |||
| Mars 4 | 21 July 1973 | 10 February 1974 | 10 February 1974 | Orbiter | Could not enter orbit, made a close flyby |
| Mars 5 | 25 July 1973 | 2 February 1974 | 21 February 1974 | Orbiter | Partial success. Entered orbit and returned data, but failed within 9 days |
| Mars 6 | 5 August 1973 | 12 March 1974 | 12 March 1974 | Lander | Partial success. Data returned during descent but not after landing on Mars |
| Mars 7 | 9 August 1973 | 9 March 1974 | 9 March 1974 | Lander | Landing probe separated prematurely; entered heliocentric orbit |
| Viking 1 | 20 August 1975 | 20 July 1976 | 17 August 1980 | Orbiter | Success |
| 13 November 1982 | Lander | Success | |||
| Viking 2 | 9 September 1975 | 3 September 1976 | 25 July 1978 | Orbiter | Success |
| 11 April 1980 | Lander | Success | |||
| Phobos 1 | 7 July 1988 | 2 September 1988 | Orbiter | Contact lost while on route to Mars | |
| Lander | Not deployed | ||||
| Phobos 2 | 12 July 1988 | 29 January 1989 | 27 March 1989 | Orbiter | Partial success: entered orbit and returned some data. Contact lost just before deployment of landers |
| Landers | Not deployed | ||||
| Mission (1990–1999) | Launch | Arrival at Mars | Termination | Elements | Result |
| Mars Observer | 25 September 1992 | 24 August 1993 | 21 August 1993 | Orbiter | Lost contact just before arrival |
| Mars Global Surveyor | 7 November 1996 | 11 September 1997 | 5 November 2006 | Orbiter | Success |
| Mars 96 | 16 November 1996 | 17 November 1996 | Orbiter, lander, penetrator | Launch failure | |
| Mars Pathfinder | 4 December 1996 | 4 July 1997 | 27 September 1997 | Lander, rover | Success |
| Nozomi (Planet-B) | 3 July 1998 | 9 December 2003 | Orbiter | Complications while on route; Never entered orbit | |
| Mars Climate Orbiter | 11 December 1998 | 23 September 1999 | 23 September 1999 | Orbiter | Crashed on surface due to metric-imperial mix-up |
| Mars Polar Lander | 3 January 1999 | 3 December 1999 | 3 December 1999 | Lander | Crash-landed on surface due to improper hardware testing |
| Deep Space 2 (DS2) | Hard landers | ||||
| Mission (2000–2009) | Launch | Arrival at Mars | Termination | Elements | Result |
| 2001 Mars Odyssey | 7 April 2001 | 24 October 2001 | Currently operational | Orbiter | Success |
| Mars Express | 2 June 2003 | 25 December 2003 | Currently operational | Orbiter | Success |
| Beagle 2 | 6 February 2004 | Lander | Lost contact in December 2003 after separation from Mars Express. Fate unknown. | ||
| MER-A Spirit | 10 June 2003 | 4 January 2004 | last contact March 2010, stuck. Contact lost. | Rover | Success |
| MER-B Opportunity | 7 July 2003 | 25 January 2004 | Currently operational | Rover | Success |
| Rosetta | 2 March 2004 | February 25, 2007 | Currently operational | Gravity assist enroute to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko | Success |
| Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter | 12 August 2005 | 10 March 2006 | Currently operational | Orbiter | Success |
| Phoenix | 4 August 2007 | 25 May 2008 | 10 November 2008 | Lander | Success |
| Dawn | 27 September 2007 | 17 February 2009 | Currently operational | Gravity assist to Vesta | Success |
| Mission (2010–2019) | Launch | Arrival at Mars | Termination | Elements | Result |
| Fobos-Grunt | 8 November 2011 | 8 November 2011 | Phobos lander, sample return | Failed to leave Earth orbit.[32] Rescue attempts unsuccessful [33] | |
| Yinghuo-1 | 8 November 2011 | Orbiter | |||
| MSL Curiosity | 26 November 2011 | 5 August 2012 | Currently operational | Rover | Successful launch[34]
and insertion into trans-Mars orbit[35] |
| Name | Estimated launch |
Elements | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| MAVEN | 2013 | Orbiter | Will study Mars' upper atmosphere |
| MetNet | 2014–2019[36] | Multi-lander network | Simultaneous meteorological measurements at multiple locations.[37] |
| and ExoMars |
2016 | Orbiter, lander | Trace Gas Orbiter to deliver the ExoMars static lander. |
| 2018 | Rover | ExoMars rover | |
| Mission | 2013-2015[38] | Orbiter | In the conceptual phase[39][40] |
| and Sample return |
2020? | Orbiter, lander, rover, sample return | Under study; not yet funded or scheduled |
| InSight | 2016? | Lander | Competing with two other concepts in the Discovery program |
| Mars-Grunt | - | Sample return | Mission concept |
There are a number of conceptual missions for the exploration of Mars, but the missions are not yet fully funded nor under development. Many missions have been proposed for Planetary Science Decadal Surveys, as well as other programs such as the Mars Scout Program. Another source of professional missions concepts are Roscosmos and the ESA.
As of July 2011[update], NASA Ames Research Center is developing a concept for a low-cost Mars mission that would utilize a SpaceX Falcon Heavy as the launch vehicle and trans-Martian injection vehicle, and the Dragon capsule to enter the Martian atmosphere. The concept would be proposed for funding in 2012/2013 as a NASA Discovery mission, for launch in 2018 and arrival at Mars several months later. The science objectives of the mission would be to look for evidence of life — detecting "molecules that are proof of life, like DNA or perchlorate reductase ... proof of life through biomolecules. ... Red Dragon would drill 3.3 feet (1.0 m) or so underground, in an effort to sample reservoirs of water ice known to lurk under the red dirt." The mission cost is projected to be less than US$425,000,000, not including the launch cost.[41]
In October 2009, an agreement was signed between United States' space agency, NASA, and Europe's space agency, ESA in order to increase cooperation and expand collective capabilities, resources and expertise to continue the exploration of Mars; this agreement is named the Mars Exploration Joint Initiative (MEJI).[47][48]
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