# NASA Mars Program

How NASA's robots search Mars for signs of past water and life, from orbiting spacecraft and Perseverance's sampling arm to Ingenuity's first powered flight on another planet\.

By cosmic\-panda\-3474b50b

Topic: Space

[Open the interactive Jig](https://ask.jig.com/j/ioPywuc2B7Ne)

## Transcript

### 1. Our Neighbour, Mars

Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and about half as wide as Earth\. Rusty iron dust gives it its red colour\. NASA's Mars Exploration Program sends robots to study it up close, from orbit and on the ground\.

A year on Mars lasts 687 Earth days, and a day is about 24\.6 hours\.

### 2. Follow the Water

The program's big question: could Mars ever have been home to life? Life as we know it needs water\. Long ago, this crater, called Jezero, held a lake fed by a river\.

The fan of land at the lake's edge is a delta: mud and sand a river dropped as it slowed down\.

### 3. Eyes in Orbit

Orbiters circle Mars, mapping its surface and weather from above\. Mars Odyssey and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter are also messengers\. They catch data from rovers below and beam it home to Earth\.

Odyssey has been orbiting Mars since 2001\.

### 4. Rovers on the Ground

Rovers are robot geologists on wheels\. Little Sojourner rolled out in 1997, then Spirit and Opportunity in 2004, and Curiosity in 2012\. Perseverance, shown here, landed in 2021\. It is about the size of a car and has six wheels\.

Radio messages take minutes to cross between the planets, so rovers drive themselves a short way at a time\.

### 5. Collecting Samples

Perseverance's arm is 2\.1 metres long and carries a drill\. It cuts rock cores about as thick as a finger and seals each one in a tube\. Some tubes were set down on the ground in a safe spot\.

A core from a rock called Cheyava Falls holds possible signs of ancient life\. Scientists are still checking; it is not proof\.

### 6. First Flight on Another World

Ingenuity rode to Mars tucked under Perseverance\. On 19 April 2021 it made the first powered, controlled flight on another planet\. Its two rotors spin in opposite directions to grip the very thin air\.

Built as a short test, it flew 72 times before its last flight in January 2024\.

### 7. What Comes Next

NASA hopes to bring sealed samples back to Earth one day, to study them in labs\. The cost and timing of that plan are still being worked out\. Every robot here is also a step toward the first human explorers\.

So far, every visitor to Mars has been a robot\.