It had escaped my notice that there are currently seven pieces of functional hardware operating at, or in orbit about, Mars. Pretty sure this is a record.

2001 Mars Odyssey (NASA, orbital): nearly fourteen years and still trucking. This, too, is a record, as the longest successful orbital mission about a planet.

2003 Mars Express (ESA, orbital)

2004 MER-B “Opportunity” (NASA, rover)

2006 Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

2012 MSL Curiosity (NASA, rover)

2014 Mars Orbiter Mission (ISRO, orbiter)

2014 MAVEN (NASA, orbiter)

Well done Earth people.

Humble rags….

“It escaped my attention”… Yah

Meanwhile Venus must be wondering what she needs to do to get a decent probe.

MESSENGER is still going, but Venus Express has been deliberately crashed, and the Japanese Akatsuki missed its insertion window. Hasn’t seen a lander in 30 years.

I hate when I miss my insertion window

Dropbear said:

Humble rags….

“It escaped my attention”… Yah

Ah well normally I try to stay on top of these things.

Dropbear said:

I hate when I miss my insertion window

Venus is like the Parthenon Milk Bar

dv said:

Dropbear said:

I hate when I miss my insertion window

Venus is like the Parthenon Milk Bar

NLACGB

MESSENGER will crash on Mercury by the end of this month.

dv said:

MESSENGER will crash on Mercury by the end of this month.

天皇陛下万歳

captain_spalding said:

dv said:

MESSENGER will crash on Mercury by the end of this month.

天皇陛下万歳

?

dv said:

It had escaped my notice that there are currently seven pieces of functional hardware operating at, or in orbit about, Mars. Pretty sure this is a record.

2001 Mars Odyssey (NASA, orbital): nearly fourteen years and still trucking. This, too, is a record, as the longest successful orbital mission about a planet.

2003 Mars Express (ESA, orbital)

2004 MER-B “Opportunity” (NASA, rover)

2006 Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

2012 MSL Curiosity (NASA, rover)

2014 Mars Orbiter Mission (ISRO, orbiter)

2014 MAVEN (NASA, orbiter)

Nice summary. I knew about MAVEN but had forgottewn about the Mars Orbiter Mission launched by India.

MAVEN is the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN mission, the first space probe sent to Mars specifically to study its atmosphere. It does “deep dips” that take its orbit into the upper part of Mars’s atmosphere. Admittedly “deep in the atmosphere” is still 125 km up. Since then MAVEN has observed auroras and dust clouds on Mars.

The only imaging instrument on MAVEN is the “Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph”. Ultraviolet is very useful for studying auroras. The magnetometer on board will measure the weak magnetic field of Mars.