Mars exploration timeline

Mars missions timeline: every launch since 1960

Fifty missions have been launched toward Mars since 1960, by our count from NASA’s lists. They include flybys, orbitersOrbiterAn orbiter circles Mars without landing, studying the planet from above — and many also relay rover data back to Earth.More in the glossary, landersLanderA lander touches down on Mars and works from one spot, unlike a rover, which drives.More in the glossary, roversRoverA rover is a robot vehicle that drives across Mars, following plans its team on Earth sends ahead of each drive.More in the glossary and one helicopter. Here is every one, in launch order, with what happened to it.[1][2]

Launch and arrival dates are UTC. Launch dates are from NASA’s NSSDCA chronology and NASA’s Beyond Earth (for ESCAPADE, from NASA’s launch release); outcomes to 2016 are from Beyond Earth unless another source is marked. “Worked”: did its main job at Mars. “Partly worked”: one part worked and another failed, or the mission was cut short; Mars Express and ExoMars 2016 count here because their landers failed. “Failed”: returned no data from Mars. The labels and counts are ours. We leave out Zond 3 (1965), a Soviet Mars test craft that flew past the Moon instead, and spacecraft that only swung past Mars on the way elsewhere. Beyond Earth’s own table counts 43 Mars attempts up to 2016, 25 of them total or partial successes; our 45 rows for those years differ only because we count Zond 2, which that table leaves out, and list Deep Space 2 apart from Mars Polar Lander.[1][2][34]

Mars exploration firsts

The Soviet Union made the first attempt in 1960, but NASA’s Mariner 4 was the first to succeed, in 1965. These are the milestones, with the dates NASA’s records give.[2][3]

Sojourner rolled down a ramp from its lander on the night of Jul 5, 1997, NASA says. Ingenuity’s first flight was at 07:34 UTC and lasted 39.1 seconds.[2][3][4][5][6][7][12][18]

What did Mariner 4 find?

Mariner 4 took the first close-up photos of Mars: 21 pictures and part of a 22nd, as it flew past on Jul 14–15, 1965.[3] They were the first images of another planet ever sent back from deep space, NASA says. Its twin, Mariner 3, had failed at launch in November 1964, when its nose shroud stayed on.[2][3]

Mariner 4 passed 9,846 km (6,118 mi) from the surface at 01:00 UTC on Jul 15 (8:00 p.m. on Jul 14 in the eastern US). The photos covered about 1% of the planet.[3] They showed a cratered, Moon-like world. When the spacecraft passed behind Mars, its radio signal showed that the air was very thin, so future landers would need rockets as well as parachutes.[2]

What was the first landing on Mars?

The Soviet Mars 3 lander made the first soft landing on Dec 2, 1971, but it fell silent within about 20 seconds.[2][5] Five days earlier, the lander of its twin, Mars 2, had crashed, becoming the first human-made object to reach the surface.[2]

Mars 3 set down at 13:47 UTC, about 45° south of the equator, during a global dust storm. It began sending a TV picture, but the signal stopped after 14.5 seconds, NASA’s history office says (NASA’s Mars24 list says about 20). The fragment showed only gray. Soviet controllers thought an electrical discharge in the storm may have shorted the lander.[2][5] NASA says Mars 3 “claimed a technical first.”[6]

The first landing that worked was NASA’s Viking 1, on Jul 20, 1976, in Chryse Planitia. It sent the first pictures from the surface and worked until November 1982.[2][6] Ten spacecraft have now landed and worked, NASA’s Mars24 list shows; see them on our Mars map.[5]

How many Mars missions have failed?

20 of the 49 missions that have had their chance at Mars failed outright, by our count from NASA’s records. Nine more partly worked.[1][2] That leaves 20 that did their main job, and ESCAPADE still on its way.

Most failures came early. Twelve never got on a path to Mars: their rockets failed, or they were stranded in Earth orbit. Four went silent on the way, and four failed when they got there.[2] Eight of the nine failures in the 1960s were Soviet.[2]

Some were simple mistakes. Mars Climate Orbiter was lost in 1999 because commands were sent in English units (pound-seconds) instead of metric. Mars Polar Lander probably shut off its engines too early: when its legs deployed, they sent a false signal that it had landed. Its loss “spelled the effective end” of NASA’s “Faster, Better, Cheaper” approach, NASA’s history office says.[2]

Of the 16 launches from 2001 to 2020, only two failed: Russia’s Phobos-Grunt and China’s Yinghuo-1, which shared one rocket in 2011 and never left Earth orbit.[2] Landing is still the hardest part: of 16 landers that reached Mars, 10 landed and worked, NASA’s Mars24 list shows.[5]

Which countries have reached Mars?

Six countries and agencies have put a working spacecraft in orbit around Mars: the Soviet Union, the United States, the European Space Agency, India, the United Arab Emirates and China.[2][19][27][29] Only the United States and China have landed spacecraft that kept working; the Soviet Mars 3 lasted only seconds.[5]

Dates are UTC except China’s landing, which CNSA gives in Beijing time (NASA’s Mars24 list gives May 14, UTC). Russia’s own missions since the Soviet era, Mars 96 and Phobos-Grunt, both failed; it was ESA’s partner on ExoMars 2016.[2][4][5][19][27][28][29]

A short history of Mars exploration

Mars exploration began with Soviet failures in the 1960s and has moved from flybys to orbiters, landers, rovers and a helicopter.[1][2]

• 1960s: flybys. The Soviet Union tried five times in 1960 and 1962, and none worked. NASA’s Mariner 4 sent the first close-ups in 1965, and Mariners 6 and 7 followed in 1969.[2]
• 1970s: orbiters and landers. Mariner 9 found giant volcanoes and the Valles Marineris canyon system, which runs about 4,000 km (2,500 mi). Viking 1 and 2 landed in 1976 and tested the soil for life; the results were inconclusive.[2]
• 1980s: two launches. The Soviet Phobos 2 photographed the moon Phobos before it was lost in 1989.[2]
• 1990s: wins and losses. Sojourner became the first rover in 1997, and Mars Global Surveyor mapped the planet. Then NASA lost Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Polar Lander in 1999.[2]
• 2000s: every launch arrived. Odyssey, Mars Express, Spirit, Opportunity, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Phoenix all reached Mars. Phoenix confirmed water ice under the Arctic soil.[2][14]
• 2010s: new players. India reached orbit on its first try in 2014. Curiosity found chemical and mineral evidence of past habitable environments on Mars.[10][19]
• 2020s: three launches in one month. The UAE’s Hope, China’s Tianwen-1 and NASA’s Perseverance launched in July 2020. In September 2025, the journal Nature published results showing that a Perseverance sample holds potential biosignatures: clues that past life may have been present, which need more study, NASA says.[1][11]

Which Mars missions are still working?

At least eight spacecraft from this list are still working at Mars, by their agencies’ latest updates: six orbiters and two NASA rovers.[8][9][10][11][21][23][32][39]

• Orbiters: NASA’s Mars Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter,[8][9] ESA’s Mars Express, extended again in June 2026,[21] and the Trace Gas Orbiter, which relays data for NASA’s rovers.[23] China’s Tianwen-1 orbiter kept surveying Mars through 2025, Xinhua reported, citing CNSA.[32] The UAE’s Hope, in orbit since Feb 9, 2021, has been extended to 2028, the UAE Space Agency said in February 2026.[27][39]
• Rovers: Curiosity and Perseverance.[10][11]

Recent losses: MAVEN went silent on Dec 6, 2025.[15] InSight ended in December 2022 and Ingenuity in January 2024.[17][18] China’s Zhurong rover went into hibernation in May 2022. It had not woken by April 2023, when its chief designer blamed dust on its solar panels, Space.com reported.[5][30][31] Live status for every mission is on our missions tracker.

What’s next?

Japan’s MMX is the next Mars launch, scheduled for Oct 20, 2026 at 04:41 Japan time (19:41 UTC on Oct 19).[36] These are the agencies’ current targets:

• NASA: ESCAPADE is to loop back past Earth in November 2026, then head for Mars and arrive in September 2027.[34]
• Japan: MMX should take about a year to reach Mars. JAXA plans to collect samples from the moon Phobos and bring them home in Japan’s fiscal 2031.[37]
• Europe: Rosalind Franklin is scheduled to launch in late 2028 on a NASA-provided launch, cruise for about two years and land at Oxia Planum.[24][25][26]
• China: Tianwen-3 is planned to launch around 2028 and bring Mars samples to Earth around 2031, C40SA said in April 2026.[40][33]

Most Mars missions launch in a short window that comes roughly every two years, when Earth and Mars line up, NASA says.[34] More on that in Mars launch windows.

Sources

1. NASA NSSDCA — Chronology of Mars ExplorationPrimary · checked Oct 6, 2026
2. NASA History Office — Beyond Earth: A Chronicle of Deep Space Exploration, 1958–2016 (NASA SP-2018-4041)Primary · checked Oct 6, 2026
3. NASA NSSDCA — Mariner 4Primary · checked Oct 6, 2026
4. NASA NSSDCA — Mariner 9Primary · checked Oct 6, 2026
5. NASA GISS — Mars24 Sunclock: Mars lander and rover landing sitesPrimary · checked Oct 6, 2026
6. NASA Science — Viking 1Primary · checked Oct 6, 2026
7. NASA Science — Mars PathfinderPrimary · checked Oct 6, 2026
8. NASA Science — Mars OdysseyPrimary · checked Oct 6, 2026
9. NASA Science — Mars Reconnaissance OrbiterPrimary · checked Oct 6, 2026
10. NASA Science — Mars Science Laboratory: Curiosity RoverPrimary · checked Oct 6, 2026
11. NASA Science — Mars 2020: Perseverance RoverPrimary · checked Oct 6, 2026
12. NASA NSSDCA — Mars 2020Primary · checked Oct 6, 2026
13. NASA Science — OpportunityPrimary · checked Oct 6, 2026
14. NASA Science — Mars PhoenixPrimary · checked Oct 6, 2026
15. NASA — NASA Says Farewell to MAVEN Mars Mission, Hosts Media Call TodayPrimary · checked Oct 6, 2026
16. NASA NSSDCA — InSightPrimary · checked Oct 6, 2026
17. NASA — NASA Retires InSight Mars Lander Mission After Years of SciencePrimary · checked Oct 6, 2026
18. NASA — After Three Years on Mars, NASA’s Ingenuity Helicopter Mission EndsPrimary · checked Oct 6, 2026
19. ISRO — Update on the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) and the National Meet organised on 27 September, 2022Primary · checked Oct 6, 2026
20. ESA — Mars ExpressPrimary · checked Oct 6, 2026
21. ESA — ESA science missions get green light for new discoveriesPrimary · checked Oct 6, 2026
22. ESA — TGO’s orbit around MarsPrimary · checked Oct 6, 2026
23. NASA Science — ExoMars ProgramPrimary · checked Oct 6, 2026
24. ESA — ExoMarsPrimary · checked Oct 6, 2026
25. ESA Exploration Science — ExoMars Rosalind Franklin (RFM)Primary · checked Oct 6, 2026
26. ESA — ExoMars rover targets vast bed of clay in search for lifePrimary · checked Oct 6, 2026
27. NASA History Office — 25 Years of Continuous Robotic Mars Exploration – From Pathfinder to PerseverancePrimary · checked Oct 6, 2026
28. CNSA — Tianwen-1 mission marks 1st year on MarsPrimary · checked Oct 6, 2026
29. Xinhua (citing CNSA) — Tianwen-1 marks 2 years in Martian orbitSecondary · checked Oct 6, 2026
30. Xinhua (citing CNSA) — China’s Zhurong rover switches to dormant mode in severe Martian dust stormSecondary · checked Oct 6, 2026
31. Space.com — China’s Mars rover may never wake up because of Martian dustSecondary · checked Oct 6, 2026
32. Xinhua (citing CNSA) — China to carry out intensive space missions in 2026: CNSASecondary · checked Oct 6, 2026
33. Xinhua (citing CNSA) — Update: China unveils international partners for Tianwen-3 Mars missionSecondary · checked Oct 6, 2026
34. NASA — NASA, Blue Origin Launch Two Spacecraft to Study Mars, Solar WindPrimary · checked Oct 6, 2026
35. NASA Science — ESCAPADEPrimary · checked Oct 6, 2026
36. JAXA — Launch schedule of the Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) spacecraft aboard H3 Launch Vehicle flight No.10 (H3 F10)Primary · checked Oct 6, 2026
37. JAXA — MMX – Martian Moons eXplorationPrimary · checked Oct 6, 2026
38. NASA NSSDCA — Deep Space 2Primary · checked Oct 6, 2026
39. Emirates News Agency (WAM) — UAE Space Agency announces extension of Emirates Mars Mission until 2028Primary · checked Oct 6, 2026
40. China National Space Administration (CNSA) — China celebrates Space Day with a sneak peek at Tianwen 3's tech (Apr 24, 2026, from China Daily)Primary · checked Oct 6, 2026