For the 17 of July 1997 Bullseye on the Red Planet On Friday, 4th July, a third American spacecraft made a soft landing on Mars, the Red Planet. This is the first successful return to the Red Planet since the two Viking spacecraft landed on Mars in 1976. As we watch the TV pictures sent back by the robot rover exploring Mars' surface, it is easy to forget the incredibly precise task of getting that spacecraft to Mars at all. Using current technology, space travel is rather like a game of darts with a very small, distant, moving target. If you don't get the direction, timing and velocity correct when you launch, millions of dollars worth of spacecraft will be lost in space.
Success depends upon the first few minutes of flight.
The empty boosters are then jettisoned. Without engines, the spacecraft is then forced to follow its predetermined path outward from the Earth. If the calculations are correct, after several months it will rendezvous with Mars. It is only made possible by very precise engineering, powerful computers, and the understanding of gravity that started with Isaac Newton. The final approach to Mars is made at tens of thousands of kilometers an hour.