Jet Propulsion Laboratory (U.S.). Mars Pathfinder Project.

The Mars Pathfinder landed on Mars July 4, 1997 after a twenty-year hiatus of landers. It was the first spacecraft ever to send a rover out to independently explore the Martian landscape. Mars Pathfinder also was the second of NASA's planetary Discovery missions designed to foster low-cost spacecraft with highly focused science objectives. The Mars Pathfinder (formerly known as the Mars Environmental Survey, or MESUR, Pathfinder) was launched atop a Delta 7925, a Delta II Lite launch vehicle with nine strapped-on solid-rocket boosters and a Star 48 PAM-D upper third stage booster, at 1:58 a.m. EST on 4 December 1996, from the launch complex 17B at Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The cruise stage was jettisoned 30 minutes before atmospheric entry trajectory as Mars Pathfinder approached Mars at 26, 460 kilometers per hour (16,600 miles per hour) and a mean flight path of 14.2 degrees. The lander took atmospheric measurements as it descended. The entry vehicle's heat shield slowed the craft to 400 m/s in about 160 seconds. A 12.5-meter billowing parachute was deployed at that time, slowing the craft to about 70 m/s. The heat shield was released 20 seconds after parachute deployment, and the bridle, a 20-meter long braided Kevlar tether, deployed below the spacecraft.

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