NASA launched Spirit, a Mars rover wrapped in airbags and designed for a 90-sol mission. It not only landed safely using an ...

Twelve years ago, NASA landed its six-wheeled science lab using a daring new technology that lowers the rover using a robotic jetpack.

The Mars Pathfinder mission, landing on July 4, 1997, delivered the Sojourner rover using a groundbreaking airbag landing system instead of rockets.

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory, or Curiosity rover, is scheduled to land on the Red Planet on Aug. 5, 2012. Here's how the rover will touch down on the planet's surface.

Like Sojourner, they bounced rather than touched down on Mars using airbags. Data from the two rovers eventually suggested Mars had a wet past, based on camera images and spectrometer information.

Why is Mars barren and uninhabitable, while life has always thrived here on our relatively similar planet Earth?

P A S A D E N A, Calif., May 15 -- After two consecutive Mars failures, NASA is considering returning to the Red Planet with a rover that would land in an air bag cocoon like the one used by the ...

The first rover, Sojourner, just after landing on Mars, still sitting on its Pathfinder landing vehicle, with the airbags that protected it on impact, ready to roll.

NASA's incredible multipart landing sequence for the Perseverance rover involves a parachute, a jetpack, and a contraption called a skycrane.

Unlike past Mars missions, the Curiosity rover will not set down atop a legged lander or bounce to the surface surrounded by shock-absorbing airbags.

Sojourner: NASA’s first Mars rover Though a basic bot by today’s standards, the rover paved the way for the last 26 years of exploring the martian surface.

At first blush, using a rocket-powered flying crane to lower a $2.5 billion nuclear-powered rover to the surface of Mars seems risky at best. But engineers say it solves a host of daunting challenges.