Surprisingly, Mars has a similar history to our planet. However, on this Red Giant, gravity is 38% higher. But this doesn’t mean people can’t live on this planet. They only need more time to adapt and to endure the thin protective atmosphere of our red neighbour. This article talks about how many rovers are on Mars and how these rovers can help us discover more about this planet. With the help of this tech, we can discover just what it takes to camp on the red planet and survive there for a long.
Besides rovers, there are also orbiters and landers on our neighbour planet. This tech picks up information and analyses the planet’s surface to determine if there’s life potential on the planet and if people could live there. Space experts sent Mars rovers to learn how they can navigate the planet’s terrain more easily and sense any obstacles they might face when going there. These rovers explore our neighbouring planet inch by inch, sending information back to Earth in 4 to 20 minutes.
How Many Rovers Are on Mars?
The number of all rovers on Mars is three now. Ever since 1961, there have been several dozens of interplanetary stations with seven rovers on Mars. Their main advantage is that this tech can move independently around the planet’s surface to collect data. Some other spacecraft vehicles are just like satellites, meaning that they orbit Mars and send probes to this planet. For now, we send technology to explore this planet because sending people would be too risky and costly.
Knowing how many rovers are on Mars is important if you want to discover more about how space missions on the red planet will go. And each rover gathers important data, as one will see in the next section of this article. Moreover, the rovers on Mars have specific designs according to what they should accomplish there. The discoveries they made so far weigh a lot, helping space experts learn more about how life on Mars should look like and more.
What Rovers Are on Mars Right Now?
As mentioned, there are only three rovers exploring Mars now. And you can track their locations using specialized websites developed by NASA. However, the exact locations of rovers on Mars are not that important if you want to learn more strictly about how these space tech examples are designed and the discoveries they’ve made. Orbital Today reports that Curiosity managed to discover that 3.5 billion years back when there was a thicker atmosphere on Mars, there could have been living in the Gale Crater. But let’s see about the other spacecraft on Mars, too.
We sent Perseverance to Mars back in 2021 to expand Curiosity’s knowledge and look for convenient sites for landing. Perseverance also equips a small Ingenuity helicopter that can fly into our neighbouring planet’s atmosphere without any problem. Zhurong is a Chinese rover and the first non-American spacecraft that succeeded with a Red planet landing. This rover’s mission is to find life traces and to study the planet’s environment. The best news about Zhurong so far is that this rover sent back topographic maps of Mars’s surface. It discovered more about this planet’s ionosphere, soils, water ice areas, and more.
How Many Mars Rovers Are Active Right Now?
While having a single rover on Mars cost quite high, not having any piece of equipment on this planet could come at even higher costs. We wouldn’t know how life on Mars would be possible in case of a major threat to our planet.
There are three rovers on Mars right now — Curiosity, Perseverance, and Zhurong rovers. InSight is a lander that checks out Red Planet’s formation to send us more information on its terrain and other data. And InSight doesn’t only look at the Martian soil samples. It also analyses the mantle, core, and crust.
The total number of robots sent to Mars is 11, with five landers and six rovers. All these robots featured many different instruments and landed on this planet in many different regions. But their ultimate purpose was always the same — assessing if this planet is habitable so that humans can build settlements there. Active Mars rovers are currently travelling on the planet’s surface to scan and drill. All knowledge they gather will be useful for when we will travel to Mars. Now, Mars rovers remain to be the cheapest and safest technology for exploring this planet. And there are plans for landing more robots on the Red Planet soon. Plus, when NASA astronauts land on the Moon as part of the Artemis program, humanity will have a base for Mars flights. And they are already closer than many people think.
