“Mars is preparing for an invasion from Earth. The rovers Spirit and Opportunity are still travelling across the surface of the Red Planet, but NASA and the European Space Agency are planning to send more missions over the next few years.”

“First up is the Mars Phoenix lander. Launched last year, this mission is due to arrive near the Martian north pole on May 25. NASA’s next rover mission is the Mars Science Laboratory, or MSL. A much larger rover than the ones currently on Mars, MSL will collect soil and rock samples and analyze them for organics. The planned launch for MSL is Fall of 2009, with an expected arrival in October 2010.”

“The European Space Agency also has plans for a rover. Called ExoMars, the projected launch date for this mission is 2013, with arrival in 2014. The ExoMars rover will have a drill that can dig deep into the subsurface, allowing scientists to search for evidence of water and organics.”

Source:

http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/Visting_Mars_Again_And_Again_999.html

“A new stereo view of Phobos, the larger and inner of Mars’ two tiny moons, has been captured by a NASA spacecraft orbiting Mars. The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took two images of Phobos 10 minutes apart on March 23. Scientists combined the images for a stereo view. The new view shows landslides along the walls of Stickney and other large craters: Phobos’ striking surface grooves and crater chains; and craters hidden on the moon’s dark side illuminated by Marsshine.”

“The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter flies at about 12,500 kilometers per hour (7,800 mph) between 250 to 316 kilometers (155 and 196 miles) above the surface of Mars. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars, observed both Martian moons last year. By combining the data with HiRISE data on Phobos, scientists can map minerals and soil types on the moons.”

Source:

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/newsroom/pressreleases/20080409a.html

Here I attach part of an article about the next mission visiting Mars published in space.com.

“NASA’s next spacecraft to visit Mars has changed course to zero in on its red planet landing site. The Phoenix Mars Lander fired its thrusters for 35 seconds Thursday to fine-tune its heading for a planned May 25 landing near the Martian north pole. Phoenix’s targeted drop zone is an area that mission scientists have dubbed “Green Valley.” The region is a broad, flat valley where mission planners plan to land Phoenix somewhere within a 62-mile by 12-mile (100-km by 20-km) ellipse. Some five million rocks have been mapped in the region by spacecraft orbiting Mars, mission managers said.”

“Researchers hope the probe’s onboard ovens, wet chemistry lab and other instruments will determine if its landing site may have once been habitable for microbial life. Phoenix is also designed to double as a Mars arctic weather and atmosphere-monitoring station. But first, the probe has to reach Mars.”

Source:

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/080411-phoenix-mars-course-correction.html

The retired NASA engineer James C. McLane III says in an interview published by abcnews.com, that he would send only one astronaut, and it would be a one-way flight. McLane recognize a “tremendous risk” in the mission, but states that people do dangerous things all the time, and this would unify the world as never before. To defend his theory, McLane appeals to recapture Apollo’s spirit and present the returning mission from the Martian surface to Earth as “a daunting technical problem.” According to him, “the first mission would be followed by others,” and thus, we could set a human colony in the red planet.

Source: http://blogs.abcnews.com/scienceandsociety/2008/03/one-way-trip-to.html

“The 900-day mission would use a 400,000kg (880,000lb) spaceship lunched by the new Ares V cargo lunch vehicle and would take a minimal crew to Mars in six to seven months, with the crew spending up to 550 days on the surface. The details were included in a presentation at “Enabling Exploration: The Lunar Outpost and Beyond”, the October meeting of NASA’s Lunar exploration analysis group.”

Sources: http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2007/11/26/219877/nasa-manned-mars-mission-details-emerge.html

http://www.maikelnai.es/2007/11/28/la-nasa-desvela-los-primeros-detalles-de-la-mision-tripulada-a-marte/

“August of 2003 was a special time for scientists and amateur astronomers. Our red neighbor, moved closer than it’s been in 50,000 years. On August 27, 2003, the “red planet” was less than 55.76 million kilometers (34.65 million miles) away from the Earth. That sounds like a huge distance, but in stellar terms, that’s a stone’s throw. Just six months before, Mars was about five times that distance.”

Source:

http://space.about.com/cs/mars/a/marsclose_2.htm