* 1993 – NASA loses contact with the Mars Observer spacecraft.

* 1992 – NASA launches the Mars Observer, a $ 511 million probe to Mars, in the first U. S. mission to the planet in 17 years.

* August 21 – NASA loses radio contact with the Mars Observer orbiter 3 days before the spacecraft is scheduled to enter orbit around Mars.

* Mars Observer – 25 September 1992 – Attempted Mars orbiter ( contact lost )

The Mars Observer spacecraft, also known as the Mars Geoscience / Climatology Orbiter, was a 1, 018-kilogram ( 2, 244 lb ) robotic space probe launched by NASA on September 25, 1992 to study the Martian surface, atmosphere, climate and magnetic field.

Mars Observer was originally planned to be launched in 1990 by a Space Shuttle Orbiter.

On August 21, 1993, at 01: 00 UTC, three days prior to the scheduled Mars orbital insertion, there was an " inexplicable " loss of contact with Mars Observer.

The force density, of roughly 0. 2 N ( 0. 04 lbf ) per square meter, that was exerted on the Mars Observer, during aerobraking is comparable to the force of a 40 mph ( 60 km / h ) wind on a human hand at sea level on Earth.

After the loss of Mars Observer and the onset of the rising costs associated with the future International Space Station, NASA began seeking cheaper, smaller solutions to scientific interplanetary missions.

The first mission in the new program was Mars Global Surveyor, launched in 1996 to map Mars and provide geologic data using instruments intended for Mars Observer.

Following Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Climate Orbiter carried two instruments, one originally intended for Mars Observer, to study the climate and weather of Mars.

Only one spacecraft of this class was eventually constructed -- the Mars Observer.

The Observer program, starting with Mars Observer, was envisioned as a series of low-cost missions to the inner solar system, based on commercial Earth satellites.

In Gnostic cosmology, the 7 letters spelling its name represent each of the 7 classic planets — Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.

Dressed in a striking costume, his hair dyed red, Bowie launched his Ziggy Stardust stage show with the Spiders from Mars — Ronson, Bolder and Woodmansey — at the Toby Jug pub in Tolworth on 10 February 1972.

The costs and risk of interplanetary travel receive a lot of publicity — spectacular examples include the malfunctions or complete failures of unmanned probes such as Mars 96, Deep Space 2 and Beagle 2 ( the article List of Solar System probes gives a full list ).

He found that each of the five Platonic solids could be uniquely inscribed and circumscribed by spherical orbs ; nesting these solids, each encased in a sphere, within one another would produce six layers, corresponding to the six known planets — Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.

As he slowly continued analyzing Tycho's Mars observations — now available to him in their entirety — and began the slow process of tabulating the Rudolphine Tables, Kepler also picked up the investigation of the laws of optics from his lunar essay of 1600.

The extended line of research that culminated in Astronomia nova ( A New Astronomy )— including the first two laws of planetary motion — began with the analysis, under Tycho's direction, of Mars ' orbit.

Finding that an elliptical orbit fit the Mars data, he immediately concluded that all planets move in ellipses, with the sun at one focus — Kepler's first law of planetary motion.

A single attempt to colonise Mars ended disastrously, due to the combination of violent conflict between the would-be colonists and a confrontation with the native Martians — a shadowy race spending most of their time swimming under the surface of the Martian dust, and to whom water is a deadly poison.

He was the driving force behind Mars Direct — a proposal intended to produce significant reductions in the cost and complexity of such a mission.

Transmissions to and from Mars suffer from significant delays due to the speed of light and the greatly varying distance between conjunction and opposition — the lag will range between 7 and 44 minutes — making real-time communication impractical.

* 228 Gm — 1. 5 AU — Distance between Mars and the Sun

* 6. 792 Mm — Diameter of Mars

The first third ( set in the period from January 1999 — April 2000 ) details the attempts of the Earthmen to reach Mars, and the various ways in which the Martians keep them from returning.

This unexpected development sets the stage for the second act ( December 2001 — November 2005 ), in which humans from Earth colonize the deserted planet, occasionally having contact with the few surviving Martians, but for the most part preoccupied with making Mars a second Earth.

Everybody has left Mars to go to Earth, except Walter Gripp — a single miner who lives in the mountains and does not hear of the departure.

Mariner 9 was launched toward Mars on May 30, 1971 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and reached the planet on November 14 of the same year, becoming the first spacecraft to orbit another planet — only narrowly beating Soviet Mars 2 and Mars 3, which both arrived within a month.

Martians, other than human beings transplanted to Mars ( as in the film Red Planet ), became rare in fiction after the visit of the space probe Mariner 4 to Mars, except in exercises of deliberate nostalgia — most frequently in genres such as comics and animation rather than word-based works.

The configuration on December 23 — Mars, Earth, Sun, Mercury, Jupiter, Galactic Centre — is shown in the graphic simulation linked below.

Some of these movies ( Mission: Impossible, Carlito's Way ) worked and some others ( Mission to Mars, Raising Cain, Snake Eyes, The Bonfire of the Vanities ) failed at the box office.

During the Word of Blake's jihad against the rest of the Inner Sphere the mercenary command Wolf's Dragoons launched a failed assault on Mars which resulted in the nuclear scouring of their base planet of Outreach.

but the shroud encasing the spacecraft atop its rocket failed to open properly, and Mariner 3 did not get to Mars.

In addition to the Mars program, the Soviet Union also sent a probe to Mars as part of the Zond program ; Zond 2, however it failed en route.

In 1996, Russia launched Mars 96, its first interplanetary mission since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, however it failed to depart Earth orbit.

Mars 1 was launched in 1962 but failed en route to Mars.

Two other Soviet launches at around the same time, Mars 2MV-4 No. 1 and Mars 2MV-3 No. 1 were spacecraft, however both failed to leave Earth orbit due to problems with the upper stages of their carrier rockets.

The N1 failed on all four of its test flights, and was never used to launch any Mars spacecraft.

* May 9, 1971 ; Centaur guidance failed, destroying itself and the Mariner 8 spacecraft bound for Mars orbit.

* Mariner 3 – 5 November 1964 – Attempted Mars flyby ( failed to attain correct trajectory )

* Cosmos 419 – 10 May 1971 – Attempted Mars orbiter ( failed to escape Earth orbit )

* Mars 6 – 5 August 1973 – Mars orbiter and attempted lander ( failed due to damage on Mars landing )

* Mars 96 – 16 November 1996 – Attempted Mars orbiter / landers ( failed to escape Earth orbit )

* Nozomi ( probe ) ( also known as Planet-B ) – 3 July 1998 – Attempted Mars orbiter ( failed to enter Mars orbit )

* Mars Climate Orbiter – 11 December 1998 – Attempted Mars orbiter ( orbit insertion failed )

* Fobos-Grunt and Yinghuo-1 – 8 November 2011 – Phobos orbiter, lander and sample return ( Russia ), Mars orbiter ( China ) – failed to escape Earth orbit

The Viking 2 lander operated on the surface for 1, 281 Mars days and was turned off on 11 April 1980 when its batteries failed.