Countdown to First Arab Mission to Mars
The United States’ Mariner 4 spacecraft collected the first close-up photographs of Mars after launch in 1964. They showed lunar-type impact craters.
The Soviet Union had several unsuccessful Mars missions during the 1960s, including in 1969, with the failed launch of its Mars probe, Mars 69.
The Proton rocket lifted off, but one engine failed. The vehicle flew at an altitude of 50 metres horizontally, finally exploding only a few dozen metres from the launch pad.
In 1971, NASA’s Mariner 9 spacecraft beat the USSR’s Mars 2 to the Red Planet, becoming the first spacecraft to orbit another planet.
While in orbit, Mariner 9 mapped 85 percent of the Martian surface and transmitted more than 7,000 images back to Earth.
In July 1976, NASA’s Viking project – made up of two identical spacecraft – became the first U.S. mission to land a spacecraft safely on Mars and return images of the surface.
Viking 1 landed on 20 July 1976. Viking 2 followed on 3 September 1976.
In 1996, researchers claimed to have found evidence of Martian life here on Earth.
Researchers from NASA and three US universities claimed to have found organic compounds in a Martian rock that was blasted into space and sent on a 15 million-year voyage to Earth.
US President Bill Clinton said if true, the scientific findings would have a tremendous impact on the world.
Several experts, some of whom had spent their professional lives looking for life beyond Earth and speculating about its existence, scoffed at the claim and said the evidence would have to be much stronger to be credible.
In July 1997, NASA successfully landed Mars Pathfinder on the Red Planet.
It was designed as a technology demonstration and the first-ever robotic rover to visit the surface of Mars.
Pathfinder’s mission was highly successful – from its novel landing method to detailed new Martian images, atmospheric measurements, and soil samplings by the little rover Sojourner.
Pathfinder returned 2.3 billion bits of information, including more than 16,500 images from the lander and 550 images from the rover.
Mars is notoriously hard to reach. In a half-century of launch attempts, around half of the missions by various countries have failed to get off the ground on Earth or overshot Mars.
Landing on the red planet is particularly treacherous because of the thin atmosphere. Incoming spacecraft travelling at 12,000 mph (19,300 kph) have only minutes to slow to a stop.
The Martian terrain is also full of obstacles – boulders, cracks and cliffs – a wrong move can doom a spacecraft.
In 2003, the European Space Agency launched its Mars Express mission to the Red Planet. It was carrying the British-built Beagle-2 lander.
Beagle-2 was successfully released, but no further contact was made, the lander was later declared lost.
In January 2015, more than 11 years later, European Space Agency officials reported that the Beagle-2 had finally been found – thanks to extensive detective work based on new photos taken by the high-resolution camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
In 2003, NASA sent two identical rovers to explore Mars and search for signs of past life. Spirit was the first to land in January 2004.
The rover far outlasted its planned 90-day mission and found evidence that Mars was once much wetter than it is today.
Spirit stopped phoning home in 2010 after getting stuck in sand. NASA called time on the mission in May 2011.
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