The Martian (film)

When the Ares III manned mission to Mars is hit by an intense storm, American astronaut Mark Watney is lost and presumed dead. With the lives of her crew at stake, mission commander Melissa Lewis is forced to leave the planet, leaving him behind. He has survived with the destruction of his communications equipment. Unable to contact NASA, he uses his knowledge as a botanist to grow food within the mission's artificial habitat, anticipating that he will need to survive for at least three years and journey to the landing site of Ares IV which already has some of its infrastructure on Mars. He keeps a series of video logs to maintain morale and begins to modify the habitat's rover to make it capable of long journeys.

Reviewing satellite photos of Mars, NASA engineers Vincent Kapoor and Mindy Park realize that he has survived, and immediately start planning to establish contact. Fearing that he may die soon, NASA director Teddy Sanders orders them not to tell the rest of the Ares IIIcrew aboard the Hermes. He locates the Pathfinder probe, defunct since 1997, and uses it to regain contact with Earth.

As he continues to grow crops, crew supervisor Mitch Henderson and JPL director Bruce Ng formulate a plan to send a space probe to Mars and resupply he to let him last the four years until Ares IV can reach him. As the launch date approaches, an increasingly optimistic Sanders authorizes them to tell the crew. Desperate to launch the probe quickly, mistakes are made and the probe explodes during the launch. He suffers his own disaster when the airlock on the habitat explosively decompresses, burning his crops and greatly reducing his projected supply of food.

The China National Space Administration (CNSA) offers NASA a lifeline: a classified booster that can carry a payload to Mars. They can send it to Mars, arriving barely in time to reach he, or follow astrodynamicist Rich Purnell's plan to have the Hermes extend its mission, intercept the probe and recover he back on Mars. Sanders and Henderson clash over the best plan: while Sanders insists on sending the probe, Lewis and her crew force the issue by setting their craft into a gravitational slingshot back to Mars.

After seven months, Mark has driven all his key life support systems to the base of the Ares IV mission. Following instructions from Kapoor, he strips the Ares IV launch vehicle down to save weight, using his spacesuit to protect against the vacuum of space. As Lewis and the crew of Hermes orbit Mars, they launch the landing vehicle remotely, intending to intercept him in space. When Mark vehicle fails to achieve the altitude needed to intercept him, they improvise an explosive device to slow Hermes down without wasting fuel, by rupturing an airlock to release the ship's atmosphere and generate thrust. Still too far away, Mark pierces his pressure suit in order to come close enough for Lewis to catch him in her MMU.

After returning to Earth, Mark begins "Day One" of his new life, taking up a position with NASA as an instructor for new candidates to the astronaut training program, emphasizing his own experiences as problem solving and creative engineering. The film ends as the Ares III crew members watches the news about the Ares V launch, which ends successful.