Mars rovers

Scientists with NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover team are helping explore questions with the Radiation Assessment Detector, or RAD

A rover team of a Turkish university won a grand prize at the biggest European competition focused on space and robotics, reaching the first and second ranks in different categories.

The rover team of Istanbul Technical University (İTÜ) has returned from Poland with two prizes in hand from the European Rover Challenge held in the country's Kielce town.

NASA confirmed on Sept. 6 that its Perseverance Mars rover succeeded in collecting its first rock sample for scientists to pore over when a future mission eventually brings it back to Earth.

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"I've got it!" the space agency tweeted, alongside a photograph of a rock core slightly thicker than a pencil inside a sample tube.

It was only supposed to fly five times. And yet NASA's helicopter on Mars, Ingenuity, has completed 12 flights and it isn't ready to retire.

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Given its stunning and unexpected success, the U.S. space agency has extended Ingenuity's mission indefinitely.

The collection of samples, which NASA marked as a turning point, will begin in the next two weeks. "We are on the threshold of a new era of planetary science and discovery", said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for science at NASA Headquarters.

China's probe to Mars touched down on the Red Planet on May 15 to deploy its Zhurong rover, state media reported, a triumph for Beijing's bold space ambitions and a history-making feat for a nation on its first-ever Martian mission.

At the Center for Space Control in Beijing, there was big jubilation when China made a successful landing on Mars early on Saturday.

The landing has taken place blindly for them down to the surface of the planet. The rover is programmed to make the landing on its own.

As exciting as the entire Perseverance mission to Mars is, one of the events most looked forward to by us Earthlings must be the first flight of Ingenuity. After conducting numerous checks and double-checks, the Perseverance team has set April 8 as the date on which they hope to attempt the first controlled powered flight on another planet.

NASA's Mars Perseverance rover went on its first drive across the planet's surface after landing there in mid-February, the US-based National Aeronautics and Space Agency announced in a statement.

The Perseverance rover touched down the Red Planet's surface in the area of Jezero Crater on February 18. All the operations were conducted in the automatic mode.

NASA's newest Mars rover hit the dusty red road this week, putting 21 feet on the odometer in its first test drive.

The Perseverance rover ventured from its landing position on March 4, two weeks after setting down on the red planet to seek signs of past life.