On 4 July 1997, NASA had special reason to celebrate as the Mars Pathfinder made a perfect landing on Mars after seven months in space. The mission has not only provided important new scientific evidence about the planet, but also helped capture the imagination of a public already fuelled by speculation that there may once have been life on the red planet.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory receives this year's Space Award for running what has been a near flawless project and helping the case for further exploration of the planet at a crucial time in the administration's renewed Mars programme.
Pathfinder followed the landing of two earlier Viking probes in the mid-1970s, but has provided much clearer details about the planet's chemistry and climate.
The craft's decent through the Martian atmosphere was slowed by parachute and its landing, at a speed of around 32m/s, softened by inflatable air bags. Once safely on the surface, the lander spacecraft deployed the Soujourner, a six wheeled intelligent robotic roving vehicle - the first to explore the surface of Mars.
Soujourner travelled in a range of 100m around the Aresvalles landing site, exploring some 250m2 of the ancient flood plain during 230 commanded manoeuvres and making 16 chemical analyses of the soil.
During the mission, which ended on 27 September, the craft and vehicle sent back to Earth some 16,500 high resolution images and 8.5 million temperature, pressure and wind measurements, allowing new insights into Martian climate and geology.
Pathfinder, second in NASA's Discovery Programme of relatively low-cost planetary missions after the Lunar Orbiter, has helped give new impetus to the NASA's ambitions for Mars exploration.
As Pathfinder's operation drew to an end, the Global Surveyor was in orbit around Mars, sending back spectacular images of the surface. A second Surveyor Orbiter mission is being put in hand this year. It will operate in tandem with a Lander mission for further surface exploration.
NASA plans to run a mission to bring back samples of the Martian soil some time in the new century. It has even mooted a manned mission perhaps in another 20 years or more. If that dream comes true, then Pathfinder will have helped pave the way.
Source: Flight International
