Remotely-controlled landers such as Viking, Pathfinder and the two Mars Exploration Rovers have landed on the surface of Mars and several Venera and Vega spacecraft have landed on the surface of Venus.

* 1997 – NASA's Pathfinder space probe lands on the surface of Mars.

MSL mockup compared with the Mars Exploration Rover and Mars Pathfinder | Sojourner rover by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory on May 12, 2008

JPL-run projects include the Galileo mission to Jupiter and its moons, the Mars rovers ( including the 1997 Mars Pathfinder and the twin 2003 Mars Exploration Rovers ).

* Mars Pathfinder

Mars Mars Pathfinder | Sojourner, seen in the opening to Star Trek: Enterprise

Enterprise was the first to be produced in high-definition ; the first to be broadcast in HDTV, beginning on October 15, 2003, midway into the third season ; the first to be filmed on digital video ( season 4 ); and the first science fiction television or movie production in history to use video footage taken on another planet ( the Sojourner rover approaching the Yogi Rock, taken by the Mars Pathfinder lander and used in the opening credits ).

* 1997 – Communications are suddenly lost with the Mars Pathfinder space probe.

* NASA's spacecraft Pathfinder lands on Mars and deploys a small roving vehicle, Sojourner, which analyzes the planet's geology and atmosphere.

* July 4 – NASA's Pathfinder space probe lands on the surface of Mars.

* Mars Pathfinder – a Mars lander + rover

The Mars Pathfinder endured a 30 second communications blackout as it entered Mars ' atmosphere, for example.

Not until the 1997 Mars Pathfinder was another remote-controlled vehicle put on an extraterrestrial body.

* Mars Pathfinder

In addition, Ames has played a support role in a number of missions, most notably the Mars Pathfinder and Mars Exploration Rover missions, where the Ames Intelligent Robotics Laboratory played a key role.

EUROPA was used as a ground-based planner for the Mars Exploration Rovers.

The American Vision for Space Exploration, originally introduced by President George W. Bush and put into practice through the Constellation program, had as a long term goal to eventually send human astronauts to Mars.

* 2003 – The Spirit Rover is launched, beginning NASA's Mars Exploration Rover mission.

Shortly after Bush announced the Space Exploration Initiative, which included a manned landing on Mars, Quayle was asked his thoughts on sending humans to Mars.

Among the Laboratory's current major active projects are the Mars Science Laboratory mission ( which includes the Curiosity rover ), the Cassini – Huygens mission orbiting Saturn, the Mars Exploration Rovers ( Spirit and Opportunity ), the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the Dawn mission to the dwarf planet Ceres and asteroid Vesta, the Juno spacecraft en route to Jupiter, the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory ( GRAIL ) mission to the Moon, the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array ( NuSTAR ) X-ray telescope, and the Spitzer Space Telescope.

JPL has been recognized four times by the Space Foundation: with the Douglas S. Morrow Public Outreach Award, which is given annually to an individual or organization that has made significant contributions to public awareness of space programs, in 1998 ; and with the John L. " Jack " Swigert, Jr., Award for Space Exploration on three occasions – in 2009 ( as part of NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander Team ), 2006 and 2005.

* Mars Exploration Rover Mission

* Mars Exploration Rover Mission: Opportunity arrives at " Vostok ".

It also acts as a relay for communications between the Mars Exploration Rovers, Mars Science Laboratory, and the Phoenix lander to Earth.

About 85 % of images and other data from NASA's twin Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, have reached Earth via communications relay by Odyssey.

* Exploration of Mars

* Mars 2001 Odyssey Mission Profile by NASA's Solar System Exploration

* TMS-SD provides public outreach events to classrooms, libraries, museums and other organizations throughout the Southern California region with seven different multimedia programs: " Invasion from Earth-The Robotic Exploration of Mars "; " Mars Exploration Rovers-Year 4 "; " Mars on Earth-The Adventures of Space Pioneers in the Utah Desert "; " Mars on Earth-The Adventures of Space Pioneers in the Canadian Arctic: " Humans to Mars-How We'll Get There "; " A Close Look at Mars "; and " Mars in the Movies "

In Cambridge Bay, Nunavut | Cambridge Bay, Canada in May 2009, the Mars Institute's Moon-1 HMMWV Rover waits for a C-130 Hercules from the 109th Airlift Squadron to airlift it to Resolute Bay Airport.

* the Mars Society Analogue Pressurized Rover – a competition to design a pressurized rover vehicle that could be used on Mars that was won by the Michigan Mars Rover Team.

* TMS-SD offers a 1 / 4-scale radio controlled Mars Exploration Rover with wireless video that children ( of all ages ) can operate

This was followed by the joint organization of the Polish edition of the Red Rover Goes to Mars contest and organization of a Mars colonization negotiation game ( Columbia Memorial Negotiations ).

* BYU Mars Rover Project

Artist Concept of a NASA Mars Exploration Rover on Mars

* The Mars Exploration Rover ( MER ) Mission successfully reached the surface of Mars in 2004, and sent detailed data and images of the landscape there back to Earth.

* Mars Exploration Rover – a Mars rover

* Mars Rover

Space probes have been placed into orbit around all the five planets known to the ancients: first Mars ( Mariner 9, 1971 ), then Venus ( Venera 9, 1975 ; but landings on Venus and atmospheric probes were performed even earlier ), Jupiter ( Galileo, 1995 ), Saturn ( Cassini / Huygens, 2004 ), and most recently Mercury ( MESSENGER, March 2011 ), and have returned data about these bodies and their natural satellites.

* 1665 – Cassini determines the rotational speeds of Jupiter, Mars, and Venus

Newer probes such as Cassini – Huygens and the Mars Exploration Rovers are highly autonomous and use on-board computers to operate independently for extended periods of time.

As such, they were used with Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11, Voyager 1, Voyager 2, Galileo, Ulysses, Cassini, New Horizons and the Mars Science Laboratory.

Along with his work as principal investigator on the MER ( Mars Exploration Rovers ), he is also a co-investigator on the 2003 Mars Express and 2005 Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter missions, a member of the Gamma-Ray Spectrometer Flight Investigation Team for the Mars Odyssey mission, and a member of the imaging team for the Cassini to Saturn.

* Cassini ( Martian crater ), a crater on Mars

* Bridget Landry ( 3 )-Jet Propulsion Laboratory Engineer ( Hubble, Mars Pathfinder, and Cassini missions ) and Master-level costumer.

Titan succeeded in launching 12 Gemini spacecraft and has also helped to launch the Viking missions to Mars, Voyager I and II and most recently Cassini to Saturn.

It proposes some new missions, such as a cometary mission, an extended Cassini mission ( including three probes ; one for the study of the atmosphere of Saturn, one atmospheric Titan probe and one to land on Titan ) and a Mars sample return mission.