On December 2, 1971, Soviet Union’s Mars 3 robotic space probe performed the first soft Mars landing. But, just 110 seconds after the landing, and 20 seconds after the transmissions has begun, it failed and transmitted just a gray image with no details. Although having no scientific value, this was the first transmission ever from the surface of Mars.
On November 9, 1971, NASA’s Mariner 9 spacecraft entered Mars orbit and became the first spacecraft to maintain an orbit around another planet than Earth. Mariner 9 beat Soviet Union’s Mars 2 by 13 days despite being launched 11 days later than its Soviet counterpart.
In about 11 months, the orbiter mapped 85% of the Martian surface and sent back more than 7,000 pictures, including images of Olympus Mons (the highest mountain in the Solar System), Valles Marineris, and two natural satellites of Mars, Phobos, and Deimos.
On September 3, 1976, the lander of NASA’s Viking 2 spacecraft (which consisted of an orbiter and a lander) separated from the orbiter and safely landed on Mars.
NASA’s robotic spacecraft Mars Pathfinder landed on Mars on July 4, 1997. It was carrying a small rover named Sojourner and with that landing, Sojourner became the first operational rover on another planet.
On June 19, 1976, NASA’s Viking 1 Orbiter was inserted into Mars orbit. Both Viking 1 and Viking 2 spacecraft were consisting of an orbiter and a lander.
On May 30, 1971, Mariner 9 robotic spacecraft was launched from LC-36B at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida on top of an Atlas SLV-3C Centaur-D rocket. It reached Mars on November 14 of the same year and became the first spacecraft to orbit Mars, and in general, another planet.
In November 2015, NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover started exploring the Bagnold Dunes, a 35-kilometer-long (about 22 miles) and 1-2 km wide (0.62-1.25 mi) group of dark grey dunes in the Gale Crater on Mars, on the northwestern flank of Mount Sharp. The dunes are named after the 20th-century desert explorer, geologist, and soldier Ralph Alger Bagnold (3 April 1896- 28 May 1990), who staged the first recorded East-to-West crossing of the Libyan Desert in 1932. Curiosity’s exploration of the area continued for about 1.5 years, ending in April 2017.
The European Space Agency (ESA) has announced that that viral “Remove Before Flight” James Webb Space Telescope meme was actually an April Fool from 2016.
If we can colonize Mars in the coming decades, will Martian colonists be able to access the Internet?
Zhurong, the China National Space Administration’s Mars rover sent a historic selfie from the surface of the red planet: the rover went forward, placed a camera on the ground, and went back towards the Tianwen-1 lander for an amazing group photo – quite an effort!