Blue Origin Sends NASA Mission To Mars
Digest more
Space.com on MSN
Next stop, not Mars: What's ahead for NASA's newly launched ESCAPADE Red Planet probes
For the first time in more than five years, humanity has launched a mission to Mars — but it won't be arriving at the Red Planet anytime soon. NASA's twin ESCAPADE probes launched Thursday (Nov. 13) on the second-ever flight of Blue Origin's powerful New Glenn rocket.
Mars is a cold, dry, desert-like planet. But billions of years ago, scientific evidence suggests that it had a thick atmosphere, which kept it warm enough to support flowing water on its surface. So, what happened to the Red Planet, and could it happen to Earth?
On November 13, 1971, Mariner 9 became the first spacecraft to orbit Mars. At the time, scientists didn't know much about the Red Planet. NASA had several flybys before Mariner 9. Those flybys showed that Mars had a cratered surface,