#Pathfinder series

Wheel size comparison: Sojourner, Mars Exploration Rover, Mars Science Laboratory These instruments could investigate the geology of the Martian surface from just a few millimeters to many hundreds of meters, the geochemistry and evolutionary history of the rocks and surface, the magnetic and mechanical properties of the land, as well as the magnetic properties of the dust, atmosphere and the rotational and orbital dynamics of the planet.

The rover also had two black-and-white cameras and a color one. The Sojourner rover had an Alpha Proton X-ray Spectrometer ( APXS), which was used to analyze the components of the rocks and soil. The MET structure included three windsocks mounted at three heights on a pole, the topmost at about one meter (3.3 ft) and generally registered winds from the West. The lander contained a stereoscopic camera with spatial filters on an expandable pole called Imager for Mars Pathfinder (IMP), and the Atmospheric Structure Instrument/Meteorology Package (ASI/MET) which acts as a Mars meteorological station, collecting data about pressure, temperature, and winds. The Mars Pathfinder conducted different investigations on the Martian soil using three scientific instruments. To demonstrate NASA's commitment to low-cost planetary exploration by finishing the mission with a total expenditure of $280 million, including the launch vehicle and mission operations.(For comparison, the Viking missions cost $935 million in 1974 or $3.5 billion in 1997 dollars.) To show that it was possible to send a load of scientific instruments to another planet with a simple system and at one-fifteenth the cost of a Viking mission.To prove that the development of 'faster, better and cheaper' spacecraft was possible (with three years for development and a cost under $150 million for the lander, and $25 million for the rover ).Originally, the mission was conceived as the first of the Mars Environmental Survey (MESUR) program. The Mars Pathfinder was also remarkable for its extremely low cost relative to other robotic space missions to Mars. In addition to scientific objectives, the Mars Pathfinder mission was also a 'proof-of-concept' for various technologies, such as airbag-mediated touchdown and automated obstacle avoidance, both later exploited by the Mars Exploration Rover mission. Although the Soviet Union successfully sent rovers to the Moon as part of the Lunokhod program in the 1970s, its attempts to use rovers in its Mars program failed.

#Pathfinder series

This mission was the first of a series of missions to Mars that included rovers, and was the first successful lander since the two Vikings landed on the red planet in 1976. The project manager was JPL's Tony Spear. The mission was directed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), a division of the California Institute of Technology, responsible for NASA's Mars Exploration Program. It was the second project from NASA's Discovery Program, which promotes the use of low-cost spacecraft and frequent launches under the motto 'cheaper, faster and better' promoted by then-administrator Daniel Goldin. The mission carried a series of scientific instruments to analyze the Martian atmosphere, climate, and geology and the composition of its rocks and soil.

The lander then opened, exposing the rover which conducted many experiments on the Martian surface. Launched on Decemby NASA aboard a Delta II booster a month after the Mars Global Surveyor was launched, it landed on Jon Mars's Ares Vallis, in a region called Chryse Planitia in the Oxia Palus quadrangle. It consisted of a lander, renamed the Carl Sagan Memorial Station, and a lightweight, 10.6 kg (23 lb) wheeled robotic Mars rover named Sojourner, which became the first rover to operate outside the Earth–Moon system. Mars Pathfinder ( MESUR Pathfinder) is an American robotic spacecraft that landed a base station with a roving probe on Mars in 1997. Official insignia of the Mars Pathfinder mission. Pathfinder and Sojourner at JPL in October 1996, being 'folded' into its launch position.