History of Mars exploration

Abstract

The first Solar System explorers were `robots' such as the Soviet Luna 3, which in 1959 acquired the first images of the Moon's hidden far side, and the American Mariner 2, which flew by Venus in 1962 during the first successful mission to the planets. These craft were designed and built by people, but travelled and operated without a human on board. Solar System exploration has been like this since 1959. Instructions telling a craft what to do are pre-programmed before launch into space, radioed in real time, or uploaded before the destination is reached. (There was also a test of limited artificial intelligence using a computer on the NASA Deep Space 1 comet/asteroid mission, but this was an isolated example.)