This document provides an update on Mars exploration from NASA/JPL. It summarizes key findings from past missions like the Viking landers and highlights current work by the Curiosity rover. Curiosity has found evidence of past habitability on Mars, including sedimentary rocks deposited in ancient rivers and detection of organic compounds. Future missions like Mars2020 and ExoMars will further investigate signs of past life and collect samples for future return. Our understanding of Mars has evolved from the initial Viking missions - it is now seen as a world that was once warmer and wetter with potential for chemical weathering and habitability.

1. An Update from Mars
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Professor John Bridges
Space Research Centre
Dept. of Physics & Astronomy
NSC Graduate Space
Industry Careers
7th February 2016

2. 40 years ago – Viking 1,2 Landers &
Orbiters
Viking Mosaic 1982
8-300m/pixel
Before Viking we didn’t know …
• Accurate atmospheric
composition
• Martian meteorites
• Landing sites
• Sedimentary rocks or basalts?
• Differentiated igneous crust?
• Has there ever been life?

3. 40 years ago – Viking 1,2 Landers &
Orbiters
1976, Viking 1 Chryse Planitia
1976, Viking 2 Utopia Planitia
1997, Pathfinder Ares Vallis (Chryse)

4. Viking 2 Landing Site - basalts?

5. Viking Orbiter images of fluvial channels
Hints of a warmer, wetter past…

6. Launch on Atlas V 541, Nov. 2011
Cape Canaveral
2011 Mars Science Laboratory Launch…

7. NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Gale Crater
x

8. Three Rover Generations
2012 MSL 975 kg
2004 MER 174 kg
1997 Sojourner10 kg

9. ChemCam
(Chemistry)
Mastcam
(Imaging)
REMS
(Weather)
DAN
(Hydrogen)
SAM
(Isotopes and
organic analyses)
CheMin
(Mineralogy)
MARDI
(Descent Imaging)
APXS
(Chemistry)
MAHLI
(micromaging)
RAD
(Radiation)
NASA/JPL-Caltech

10. Hottah Facies v.
Atacama conglomerate – river pebble beds

11. Large feldspar-rich crystals in an igneous
clast: feldspar-rich ancient continental crust
NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/IRAP/LPGNantes/CNRS/IAS/MSSS

12. Curiosity at Work: Arm deployed at John Klein
– drilling
NASA/JPL-Caltech/D. Bouic

13. Benzene organics were detected in the Cumberland drilled
sample
NASA/JPL-Caltech/GSFC

14. NASA/JPL-Caltech/GSFC

15. Bagnold Dunes
Sol 1248 (today)

16. ExoMars 2016
• Trace Gas Orbiter and
Stereo Camera
• Entry Descent Module

17. ExoMars launch 2018
or 2020
• Two metre drill
• Solar powered
• Mass spectrometer
designed to search for
signs of past life

18. HiRISE images of ExoMars
landing sites
Henson et al. 2016

19. Future Missions: Mars2020 (sample caching), ExoMars2016, 2018
• Differentiated crust –
not just basalts
• Mars is a world of
ancient deltas, rivers,
rainfall
 Was there great chemical
weathering associated with
clay in Mt Sharp?
• Mars was habitable then
great atmospheric loss
Our View of Mars has
Changed