All Stories

Take a look back with us at the landers, rovers, and helicopter that have explored Mars.

Lean about four different ways we explore and research the planets in our Solar System.

Analogous to the Wright brothers on December 17, 1903, the first flights of Ingenuity clearly demonstrated that a powered machine could fly under control in the thin Martian atmosphere. Read about how the Mars Helicopter has exceeded expectations and what it has accomplished on the surface of the Red Planet for an entire year.

It has been one year since we all heard words “touchdown confirmed” spoken by Swati Mohan, confirming that the Perseverance rover had successfully landed on Mars. Let’s take a look at some of the major milestones accomplished over the past year.

The first six months of testing the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter has surpassed expectations to say the least. Ginny has shown us that flight on the Red Planet is not only possible, but it may even be considered in future planetary endeavors. Explore six things we learned from the tiny Mars flyer in the first six months.

Ingenuity, the small, four-pound autonomous aircraft, will attempt the biggest of feats. The Wright brothers lifted their 1903 Flyer off the ground over a century ago and now the Mars Helicopter will attempt the same. Ginny is set to take off from the surface of the Red Planet no earlier than April 14.

I’m an executive producer at Smithsonian Channel and I had the pleasure of making the documentary Making Tracks on Mars. We made our film feel like an adventure because most people think of Mars as a frontier, but at its core, the story taps into our primal drive to explore.

It’s been nearly 60 years since the first spacecraft were sent to Mars, and it’s inspiring to reflect on the progress that has been made since then. If all goes according to plan, the landing of the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover will mark the start of NASA’s ninth surface mission on the Red Planet.

To get the answer, we have to know what to look for and where to go on the planet for evidence of past life. With the Perseverance rover set to land on Mars on February 18, we are finally in a position to know.

A new global inventory of landforms created by water on Mars confirms they are more common than previously reported. Many of these landforms formed late in Mars’ history, which tells us that the timeframe that Mars may have been habitable for life lasted longer than we previously thought.