NASA’s Exploration Missions to the Red Planet

Abstract

The exploration missions to the red planet were started in 1960 by the Soviet Union, since then the planet has gain attention of all the scientists and explorers worldwide. Several exploration missions have been launched by the space organizations and nations to explore the Martian surface. NASA launched its first exploration mission to Mars in 1964 in the form of Mariner 3. After that, the series of robotic exploration missions have been launched to understand the red planet intensely. The Mars Exploration Program (MEP) was also formed in 1993 to explore the possibilities of the presence of life, climate and natural resources on Mars. The MEP uses the spacecraft, orbiters, landers and rovers to explore the Martian soil. As of present, NASA has launched twenty-five missions to the red planet out of which only five missions were unsuccessful. Some of the significant discoveries have been made in recent years with missions such as Pathfinder, Spirit, Opportunity, Curiosity, MAVEN and InSight. Currently, NASA is making plans to send more robotic explorers on the Martian soil in the upcoming years to make more discoveries and gain scientific information. These robotic missions are the first steps towards the human-crewed missions to Mars. The present paper provides a quick overview of NASA's past, present and future robotic exploration missions to the red planet.

Calculation Mars – Earth distance and Mars orbital elements with Julian date

“…The orbit of Mars changes with the gravitational effect of the bodies around it so that the eccentricity can vary over time. As recently as 1.35 million years ago, Mars was in an almost circular orbit [3]. Mars has two neutral satellites: Phobos (Orbital Semi major axis = 9377.2 km, orbital period= 0.318910 days and mass= 1.08 10 16 kg) and Deimos (orbital semi-major axis equal 23463.2km, orbital period = 1.262441 days and mass = 1.80 10 15 kg) [4].…”