Mars rover Mars rover A Mars rover is a motor vehicle that propels itself across the surface of the planet Mars upon arrival. Rovers have several advantages over stationary landers: they examine more territory, and they can be directed to interesting features, they can place themselves in sunny positions to weather winter months, and they can advance the knowledge of how to perform very remote robotic vehicle control. There have been four successful robotically operated Mars rovers. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory managed the "Sojourner" rover, the "Opportunity" rover, "Spirit" rover, and, now the "Curiosity" rover. On January 24, 2016 NASA reported that
Mars Pathfinder Tony Spear. 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. 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. 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. The "Mars Pathfinder" was