Today marks the 40th anniversary — July 20, 1976 — of the first U.S. robotic landing on another planet by the Viking 1 spacecraft on Mars.
Atlas 5
NASA’s Perseverance rover leaves Earth bound for Mars
Persevering through a global pandemic, a last-minute earthquake, and the trials of a rocket launch, NASA’s next Mars rover — named Perseverance — took off from Cape Canaveral Thursday on a nearly seven-month journey to the Red Planet with sophisticated science instruments, technology to collect samples for to Earth, and the first interplanetary helicopter that could produce a “Wright Brothers moment” on another world.
Mission Reports
NASA declares Opportunity rover dead after 15 years on Mars
Eight months after last hearing from the Opportunity rover, NASA officials announced the end of the craft’s 15-year mission Wednesday, closing out an ambitious chapter of Mars exploration that proved the Red Planet once harbored running water and demonstrated the promise of mobile robotic scouts to survey other worlds.