An artist's impression depicting the separation of the ExoMars 2016 entry, descent and landing demonstrator module, named Schiaparelli, from the Trace Gas Orbiter, and heading for Mars
© EPA/ESA/ATG MEDIALAB In 1965 Mariner 4 finished a historic 228-day voyage to Mars by capturing the first close-up photographs of another planet
© AP Photo/NASA In 1975 NASA launched the Viking program consisted of two orbiters. The landers relayed the first color panoramas of Mars. Photo: Viking project director Albert J. Kullas explains the full scale model of the lander, 1971
© AP Photo First color picture of Mars taken July 21, 1976, the day following Viking 1's successful landing on the planet
© NASA Sojourner, the Mars Pathfinder robotic Mars rover landed on July 4, 1997 and explored Mars for around three months
© AP Photo/JPL Robotic rover Spirit was active on Mars from 2004 to 2010. It was one of two rovers of NASA's ongoing Mars Exploration Rover Mission
© NASA Second NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Mission vehicle - Opportunity - is still active on the planet Mars since 2004. It landed on the surface of Mars in 2004, three weeks after its twin Spirit touched down on the other side of the planet
© NASA Phoenix landed on the north polar region of Mars on May 25, 2008. Its mission confirmed presence of water ice on the planet. Photo: North polar view by Phoenix lander, 2008
© NASA Curiosity robotic rover landed on the surface of Mars in August 2012 and is currently helping to determine whether Mars could ever have supported life, and search for evidence of past or present life on this planet
© NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), a multipurpose spacecraft designed to conduct reconnaissance and exploration of Mars from orbit was launched August 12, 2005 and is still operational. Photo: An area on the surface of Mars, displaying frosted gullies on a south-facing slope within a crater, was made by MRO in 2014
© EPA/NASA/JPL-CALTECH/UNIV. OF ARIZONA Image of Mars's surface made by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
© EPA/NASA/JPL-CALTECH/UNIV. OF ARIZONA