Mars

**Mars** is a terrestrial planet in the Solar System and the fourth planet from the Sun. Due to its reddish color, coming from the iron oxide prevalent on its surface, it is also called the "Red Planet".

Multiple spacecraft and rovers have been sent to the planet over a long period, starting in the 70s. In the mid 90s, the first humans landed on the surface of Mars.

## Regions

### Valles Marineris

The Valles MarinerisW is a large system of canyons that runs along the Martian surface. It is located along the equator of Mars and stretches for nearly a quarter of the planet's circumference. Valles Marineris is one of the largest canyons of the Solar System.

#### Melas Chasma

Melas ChasmaW is the widest segment of the Valles Marineris canyon system and is where both American crewed Mars missions set up their bases after landing in 1995.

##### Gagarin Ridge

*Main article: Gagarin Ridge*

Gagarin Ridge is a steep ridge at Melas Chasma beside the plain where the first Helios mission set up their Mars base in 1995.

##### Peckinpah Mesa

Peckinpah Mesa is a hill close to the Happy Valley colony. Samantha Massey found some obsidianW there, which Miles Dale sent to his daughter. He wanted to collect more after his wife told him that she was offered $5,000 for it from someone who wanted to make jewelry out of it, but he fell and slid into a trench and had to be rescued by Sam.

### Ares Vallis

Ares VallisW is an outflow channel on Mars. It appears to have been carved by fluids, perhaps water.

### Meridiani Planum

The Meridiani PlanumW is a large plain straddling the equator of Mars, covered with a vast number of spherules containing a lot of iron oxide.

### Elysium Planitia

Elysium PlanitiaW is a broad plain that straddles the equator of Mars. It lies to the south of the volcanic province of ElysiumW, the second largest volcanic region on the planet, after TharsisW.

### Planum Australe

Planum AustraleW is the southern polar plain on Mars.

#### Chasma Australe

Chasma Australe is a 500 km long and up to 80 km wide canyon up to 1000 m deep at Planum Australe near the Martian south pole.

### Gusev crater

GusevW is a large Martian crater about 166 kilometers in diameter, formed approximately three to four billion years ago.

### Korolev crater

*Main article: Korolev crater*

The Korolev crater, named after former Soviet chief engineer Sergei Korolev, is an ice-filled impact crater in the northern polar plain Planum BoreumW on Mars.

## Exploration

### Uncrewed missions

*See also: Mars rover*
Several uncrewed robotic probes and rovers have been sent to the red planet. The first successful landing happened in 1975 when NASA's lander *Hermes* touched ground undamaged in Ares Vallis and deployed its rover *Sojourner*, sending home the first ever pictures from the Martian surface.

Subsequently, more missions with or without rovers were sent to Mars to explore its surface and atmosphere by several countries. In the eraly 90s, India, Turkey and North Korea sent uncrewed probes to the surface of Mars with rendezvous systems sold by Roscosmos.

In mid 1992, the two rovers *Spirit*W and *Opportunity*W of NASA's MER missionW were operating inside the Gusev crater and at Meridiani Planum, respectively.
The robotic probe *Endurance* was performing long term seismic studies at Elysium Planitia and was still operating in 1995.

In early 1995, NASA's Galileo V probe *MPL-2* was doing climate studies at Planum Australe near the Martian south pole.

### Crewed missions

*See also: Race to Mars, Sojourner-1 mission, Helios Mars mission, Roscosmos Mars mission, and Happy Valley colony*
In the mid-1990s, the United States, the Soviet Union, and the American private competitor Helios Aerospace raced to land the first humans on the planet. The three competitors all launched their missions during the same launch window in fall 1994, and after an intense race, the first humans believed to set foot on the planet were Grigory Kuznetsov and Danielle Poole.

However, in September 1994, some weeks before the others, the North Korea space program had sent what was believed to be an uncrewed probe to the surface of Mars. Actually, the probe secretly carried two North Korean cosmonauts, Lee Jung-Gil and Park Chol. While the latter was killed during the landing, Lee became the real first man setting foot on Mars on February 8, 1995.

Early 1995, the combined NASA/Roscosmos teams and Helios both set up their own bases on the planet's surface, Happy Valley and Helios base, both inside the canyon Melas Chasma in the Valles Marineris system.

In the late 1990s, the old base transitioned into an international colony of the Mars-7 Alliance nations maintained by Helios, with over 100 habitants.

In 2003, Kelly Baldwin was working at the Carl Sagan Center for Planetary Science on a project to find microbial life in lava tubesW around the Korolev crater and other regions on Mars using kinetically enhanced robots. Some time later, back on Mars, she took a 3-day trip to the crater with her team to set up her experiment. Kelly's robots detected substantial signatures of methane concentration, the heaviest being registered at Korolev crater, but also from Chasma Australe near the Martian south pole.

## Gallery

First image taken of the Martian surface in 1975 by NASA's *Hermes* landerSurface of MarsA valley on MarsLee Jung-Gil stepping foot on Mars in 1995A group of astronauts on MarsAn astronaut looking over Melas ChasmaNASA base on MarsHelios base on MarsValles MarinerisLocation of various probes on MarsPeckinpah Mesa, a hill on MarsMars in 2012
### Patches

Nasa Mars patchSojourner-1 mission patchMars-94 mission patchHelios Phoenix patchSpirit patchOpportunity patchNorth Korean Space Program patch 1994M-7 Alliance insigna 2003Happy Valley patch 2003Happy Valley Eden patchHappy Valley Hephaestus patchAuger drill patchPhoenix station patch 2003
## Terminology

 **Borealis** |  | Latin word for northern or the north.

## Behind the scenes

1. ↑ **First Mars rover**
In reality, the first NASA rover arrived on Mars in 1997 only, with the *PathfinderW* mission. The rover was called *Sojourner*, like in the show as well, and was also landed with the help of airbags, but in reality there was no lander called *Hermes*.
In the novel and film *The Martian*, *Hermes* was the spacecraft to transport astronauts from Earth to from Mars' orbit and back.
2. ↑ **MER mission**
NASA's MER missionW was a real mission, sending two robotic rovers to the Martian surface in summer 2003, both landing on the planet in January 2004. The rover *Spirit*W landed within the impact crater GusevW and was operational until March 2010. Its sister rover *Opportunity*W landed in Meridiani PlanumW and was operational until June 2018.
In the *For All Mankind* timeline, both rovers appear to have the same missions at the same locations, but are in operation over 10 years earlier than in reality.
3. ↑ **Galileo**
In reality, the Galileo projectW was a robotic space program of NASA that studied the planet Jupiter and its moons, as well as several other Solar System bodies. It launched in fall 1989 aboard the Space Shuttle *Atlantis* and arrived at Jupiter in December 1995. However, there was no "Galileo V" in reality, the spacecraft's name was just *GalileoW*.
In *For All Mankind*, Galileo V appears to be the show's version of the real-life Mars Polar LanderW, given its name (MPL-2), its mission (climate study), and its location (Planum AustraleW). The Mars Polar Lander, also Mars Surveyor '98, was a NASA/JPL robotic lander launched in January 1999 to study the climate of Planum Australe near the Martian south pole. However, the lander was lost after its descent phase and never established communication.
In *For All Mankind*, the probe appears to have landed several years earlier and is in operation in March 1995.
See also:   mars.nasa.gov: Mars Polar Lander
4. ↑ The Mars patch bears resemblance to the patch belonging to the AresW rockets from NASA's now defunct Constellation programW.

## See also

* Gagarin Ridge
* Korolev crater
* Race to Mars
* Space missions
* Mercury
* Venus
* Earth   →   Moon
* Jupiter
* Neptune

## External links

* Mars on Wikipedia
* Valles Marineris on Wikipedia
* Melas Chasma on Wikipedia
* trek.nasa.gov: Mars Trek - NASA

## References

1. ↑ *For All Mankind* TV Series - Season 3, Episode 4: "Happy Valley"
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 *For All Mankind* TV Series - Season 3, Episode 6: "New Eden"
3. ↑ *For All Mankind* TV Series - Season 4, Episode 1: "Glasnost"
4. ↑ Bonus Video: One Giant Leap: 1975-1982 - Mars Landing (1975)
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 *For All Mankind* TV Series - Season 3, Episode 9: "Coming Home"
6. ↑ Season 3, Episode 2: "Game Changer" (Mission status board @ 57:45) → Screenshot
7. ↑ Season 3, Episode 2: "Game Changer" (Mission status board @ 07:47) → Screenshot
8. ↑ Season 3, Episode 6: "New Eden" (Mission status board @ 44:50) → Screenshot
9. ↑ Season 3, Episode 7: "Bring It Down" (Mission status board @ 43:00) → Screenshot
10. ↑ *For All Mankind* TV Series - Season 3
11. ↑ *For All Mankind* TV Series - Season 3, Episode 5: "Seven Minutes of Terror"
12. ↑ *For All Mankind* TV Series - Season 3, Episode 10: "Stranger in a Strange Land"
13. ↑ *For All Mankind* TV Series - Season 4, Episode 1: "Glasnost"
14. ↑ Bonus Video: Leap Into a New Millenium: 1996-2001 - The Mars-7 Alliance (1997)
15. ↑ *For All Mankind* TV Series - Season 4, Episode 2: "Have A Nice Sol"
16. ↑ *For All Mankind* TV Series - Season 4, Episode 8: "Legacy"
17. ↑ *For All Mankind* TV Series - Season 4, Episode 9: "Brazil"