Ares IV Ares IV was an Earth spacecraft used during one of Human ity ' s early manned missions to Mars , which took place in 2032 under the command of Lieutenant John Kelly . The other members of the crew were Rose Kumagawa and Andrei Novakovich . The mission was run under the auspices of the International Space Agency , with communications being assisted by NASA . ( ) Technical data . The " Ares IV " craft was made up of several connected modules , with the " Martian Command Module " , located in the front , acting as the craft ' s bridge . This command module was cylindrical and had two pilot seats with a small curved window in front of each . The craft had seatbelt s on the chairs to keep the pilots secured in their seats during take - off and in the zero gravity of space . Between the two command seats was a " Spectrum " video monitor and digital clock that had a series of push - buttons and switches to control the ship ' s systems . The mission commander sat on the starboard side , which also controlled the ship ' s engines and sensor s . The screen in front of him showed various spatial information , such as the ship ' s location and video feed of the surface team on a " TM 9U Color Video Monitor . " The " Ares IV " had a third - generation ion drive as a propulsion system , designed for travel to Mars and back , not for deep space . The ship had an ionic power system that relayed power to all the ship ' s systems and was channeled through an ion distributor , the 21st century equivalent of plasma manifold s . The " Ares " was also able to replenish some of its own power through the use of two large photovoltaic sol ar panels on each side of the ship . Communication for the " Ares " mission was joint - run by NASA and the ISA , so the " Ares IV " transmitted to and received information from NASA Mission Control in Houston , Texas . The module used a high gain antenna and , as such , there was a delay of several minutes for messages sent from " Ares IV " to Earth and vice versa messages . Communication between " Ares IV " and the surface of Mars , however , was almost instantaneous . The ship ' s science equipment included a LIDAR array . It was also equipped with a trans - spectral imager used to collect data , though it had to be manually activated . In the event of emergency , a small escape craft was docked directly behind the cockpit so the crew may abandon ship if necessary . The escape - craft had a rounded back to allow for entering a planet ' s atmosphere . The vessel itself was constructed of several titanium alloys , as well as polymer composites – distinctive of 21st century early - Human space craft . It was 46 meters long , and weighed 92 metric ton s . Designs . The hull of the " Ares IV " had a ring of flags around it , each representing a member of the International Space Agency . Also on the hull was the ISA logo . The " Ares IV " mission patch was an irregular hexagon with a white band around the edge which contained the spacecraft ' s name at the top and an image of the " Ares IV " module from the front with its solar panels extending beyond the edges . The bottom three sides listed the last names of the crew members , " Kumagawa Kelly Novakovich . " Mission . The " Ares IV " mission was set for mid - late October of 2032 . Scientist s Rose Kumagawa and Andrei Novakovich landed on Mars , spending several days on the surface . On the morning of October 19 , Kumagawa described the sunset as beautiful , with a hint of green . Kelly , manning the craft from orbit , wished he could see the sunset as well . Kumagawa and Novakovich worked on drilling through a lava plain , breaking through the iron oxide barrier down to eight meters . They were hoping to have samples ready by the end of the day , when the signal to the craft was lost . Tragedy . The signal came back a moment later as Kelly encountered turbulence in orbit . He reported an unknown object approaching his position , over 1 , 000 meters across with an azimuth of 121 . 6 on the LIDAR . Scanning the anomaly with the trans - spectral imager , his signal was lost at 0922 hours , when the anomaly overtook his ship . NASA , ISA , and the team on the surface believed Kelly had been killed and there was no trace of " Ares IV " . It took several weeks for a rescue ship to retrieve Kumagawa and Novakovich . This was Humanity ' s first encounter with a spatial anomaly . It was later found that what Kelly encountered was a graviton ellipse , an anomaly which is attracted to EM radiation and rarely comes out of subspace . The loss of " Ares IV " almost derailed future missions to Mars as it was another tragic point in the history of space exploration . But manned missions and colony attempts would eventually continue , with the " Ares IV " s mission and crew being cited as groundbreaking , paving the way for the future of space exploration . Mars itself was colonized nearly seventy years later in 2103 . ( ) Kelly ' s mission . ISA and NASA didn ' t know it , but Kelly actually survived being engulfed by the ellipse , after he ' d fallen off NASA ' s LIDAR scopes . He continued keeping log entries for several days , the last one dated October 29 , 2032 . Recovery . In 2376 , the encountered the graviton ellipse and located the remains of the command module – and those of Kelly – in the Delta Quadrant . The module ' s database , including logs recorded by Kelly after the module had entered the ellipse , were subsequently recovered . ( ) Appendices . Background information . " Ares IV " was one of the most researched designs made for " Star Trek " , and possibly the most realistic ever on the show . Science Consultant André Bormanis goes into detail about how the ship was researched in an interview in . The characters reference the mission several times as " one of the early missions " to Mars , suggesting it was not the first manned mission . According to the " " ( p . 38 ) , in 2030 , the spacecraft " Ares I " became the first manned vessel to land on Mars . From the , " " The " Ares 4 " orbital craft and Earth return vehicle was designed by illustrator ( and noted space artist ) Rick Sternbach in consultation with Dr . , planetary scientist and former director of NASA ' s Jet Propulsion Laboratory . The landing craft was a modification of an Apollo lunar module . " " There was also a real world NASA " Ares " - program in the works . These rockets were part of , a renewed American effort to send Humans back to the Moon and , eventually , to Mars . The real " Ares IV " was intended to carry a lunar lander into orbit during its 2017 test flight . In the real world , Project Constellation was canceled in 2010 . In , a desktop model of " Ares V " , seen as set decoration , suggested that the program wasn ' t canceled in the " Star Trek " universe . The novels " Preserver " and " The Needs of the Many " use the spelling " Aries IV " .