Mars Pathfinder was launched December 4, 1996 and landed on Mars’ Ares Vallis on July 4, 1997. Mars Pathfinder used an innovative method of directly entering the Martian atmosphere, assisted by a parachute to slow its descent through the thin Martian atmosphere and a giant system of airbags to cushion the impact.

seven months
After traveling 120 million miles in seven months, NASA’s Mars Pathfinder becomes the first U.S. spacecraft to land on Mars in more than two decades.

The Mars Pathfinder mission, designed to demonstrate a low-cost method for delivering a set of science instruments to the Red Planet, was the first wheeled vehicle to be used on any other planet in the solar system and served as the foundation for the Mars rovers of today.

NASA’s Mars Pathfinder was designed primarily to demonstrate a low-cost way of delivering a set of science instruments and a free-ranging rover to the surface of the Red Planet. In addition to its engineering accomplishments, Pathfinder provided significant data on Mars’ geology and meteorology.

Sojourner is a robotic Mars rover that landed in the Ares Vallis channel in the Chryse Planitia region of the Oxia Palus quadrangle on July 4, 1997. Sojourner was operational on Mars for 92 sols (95 Earth days). The Sojourner mission formally ended on March 10, 1998, after all further options were exhausted.

The Pathfinder mission led to multiple scientific discoveries about the red planet, including the following: Panoramic images of Pathfinder’s landing site at Ares Vallis and the presence of rounded pebbles and cobbles suggested that Mars had a warmer, wetter past.

It sent back more than 550 pictures of the Red Planet. The rover used instruments to study what the nearby Martian rocks and dirt were made of. Its lander also collected information about winds and other weather factors on Mars. From far away, Mars looks cold, dry, and rocky.

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game

The site is 850 kilometers (527 miles) southeast of the location of Viking Lander 1, which in 1976 became the first spacecraft to land on Mars. Pathfinder will be the first to land on Mars since the twin Viking landers arrived almost 20 years ago.

Mars Pathfinder (MESUR Pathfinder) is an American robotic spacecraft that landed a base station with a roving probe on Mars in 1997.

NASA Pathfinder. The NASA Pathfinder and NASA Pathfinder Plus were the first two aircraft developed as part of an evolutionary series of solar- and fuel-cell-system-powered unmanned aerial vehicles. AeroVironment, Inc. developed the vehicles under NASA’s Environmental Research Aircraft and Sensor Technology (ERAST) program.