NASA officials were asked some years ago to catalogue the number of technical actions and successful communications necessary to fly a spacecraft safely from Earth to Mars. The number: about 10,000. And that was for an orbiter, as opposed to a lander such as the Mars Science Laboratory , which requires an additional and very demanding descent through the thin Martian atmosphere to the surface. Read full article > >

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Landing on Mars is hard, but another mission to the Red Planet is about to begin

A Russian space probe intended to collect rock and dust from a Martian moon veers off course within minutes of its launch.

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Probe fails to set course to Mars

A study of the Martian polar region by an orbiting satellite shows that sand dunes, once thought to be frozen and static, change radically every year.

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Images show Mars’ shifting dunes

Scientists uncover “firm evidence” that Mars’s biggest moon, Phobos, was formed from material blasted off the Martian surface in a catastrophic event.

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Massive blast ‘created Mars moon’