page_title: List of Mars orbiters
section_title: 21st century
hierarchical_section_title: List of Mars orbiters / History / 21st century
caption_attribution_description: English: This picture of the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft by the Mars Orbiter Camera on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor is from the first successful imaging of any spacecraft orbiting Mars taken by another spacecraft orbiting Mars. The picture is a composite of two views of Mars Express that Mars Orbiter Camera acquired on April 20, 2005, from distances of about 250 and 370 kilometers (155 and 229 miles). Owing to the large distance between Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Express when the two views could be acquired and to a substantial cross-track component of apparent motion for which no correction could be made, Mars Express appears in the image as a narrow blur rather than as a well-defined spacecraft. It appears in the image to be about 1.5 meters in the small dimension and 15 meters in the long dimension, which is consistent with the viewing distance, pixel scale, and encounter geometry. The components of Mars Express when viewed from the same angle as this image can be seen in an artist's rendition and an annotated rendition, of the spacecraft. Mars Express was launched on June 3, 2003, and reached Mars on Dec. 25, 2003. Mars Global Surveyor left Earth on Nov. 7, 1996, and arrived in Mars orbit on Sept. 12, 1997. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages Mars Global Surveyor for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C.
context_page_description: The following table is a list of Mars orbiters, consisting of space probes which were launched from Earth and are currently orbiting Mars. As of December 2016, there are up to fourteen known artificial satellites in Mars' orbit, six of which are active.
context_section_description: 2001 Mars Odyssey was launched April 7, 2001 on a Delta II rocket and currently holds the record for the longest-surviving continually active spacecraft in orbit around a planet other than Earth at 18 years, 9 months and 1 day.
  In 2003, the European Space Agency (ESA) launched their first planetary mission with Mars Express to conduct reconnaissance and exploration of Mars from orbit. On 12 August 2005, NASA launched Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). As MRO entered orbit in 2006, it joined three other active spacecraft which were in Mars' orbit: Mars Global Surveyor (MGS), Mars Express, and 2001 Mars Odyssey; at the time, this set a record for the most operational spacecraft in the immediate vicinity of Mars. MGS has since ceased to function.
  On September 24, 2014, the Mars Orbiter Mission (Mangalyaan-1) was  launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation(ISRO) and reached Mars orbit; ISRO became the first space agency to succeed in its first attempt at a Mars orbiter. ISRO launched the orbiter on November 5, 2013 as a "technology demonstrator" project. Its secondary goal is to analyze the Martian atmosphere and topography. The mission is the first successful Asian interplanetary mission. Ten days after ISRO's launch, NASA launched their seventh Mars orbiter MAVEN to study the Martian atmosphere. Its goals include determining how the planet's atmosphere and water, presumed to have once been substantial, were lost over time.
caption: Artist's rendition of Mars Express as seen by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor
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