Mars - 2

The next two decades were met with struggle as several spacecraft from the US, Japan, Europe, and former USSR were lost. Success resurfaced in the late 1990s with the ESA orbiter Mars Express and NASA’s Pathfinder rover, and Global Surveyor and Odyssey orbiters—heralding the mantra “Follow the Water.” In 2004, NASA’s twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity began work. NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Phoenix lander followed. As data from these robotic explorers piled up, so did evidence that Mars preserves a record of surface liquid water and possibly once-habitable environments. NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory, which arrived in 2012, carried an unprecedented suite of instruments that can bring us one step closer to determining if life ever started on Mars. Its Curiosity rover is now offering a human-like perspective to martian landscapes.