Rovers

Sojourner

Sojourner was the first Mars rover and the first non moon rover. The rover was planned to run for 7 days but amazingly survived for 88, in that time traveling over 100m. The rovers goal was a simple test to see if the design principals they were using were suitable for the Martian landscape. Sojourner layed the foundation for all future rovers

Spirit

Spirit was a Mars rover launched in june 2003. Spirit is the twin sibling of the Opertunity rover. Spirits main objective was to identify evedence of there being or once being liquid water of the surface of Mars. Spirit landed in the impact crater Gusev. Unfortunately about 3 years in its front right wheel stopped working. Because of this the engineers had to drag the wheel along with them ultimately wearing the rover down until it stopped functioning entirely.

Opertunity

Opportunity was much more successful than their sibling, being able to survive for 14 and a half years. Opertinity was launched 3 weeks after Spirit, landing in the Meridiani Planum on the opposite side of crater Gusev. Opertunity shared the same objectives with Spirit.

Both rovers(but especially oppertunity) were able to find signs of hematite Hemitite requires an aqueous environment to form, thus proving that Mars once had liquid water.


Curiosity

Perseverence

Perseverance is the flagship creation of the recent Mars 2020 missions.


Ingenuity

MINERVA


MINERVA II

Dragonfly

Dragonfly is a planned rover to be sent to Titan. Dragonfly is part of NASA's new frontiers program(created Juno and new horizons). Dragonfly will look for signs of biological molecules and liquid water on the surface of Titan. Thus while mission is a big win for astrobiology, I can't wait to see what comes out of this