62m •
2017
It started with an order to land something on Mars - cheaply. In NASA's new era of "faster, better, cheaper," this mission had to create a radically different way of building a spacecraft. "The Pathfinders" tells the story of a small group of JPL'ers who dismissed warnings that a cut-rate mission to Earth's distant neighbor would cut short their careers. With a Martian parachute that could not be tested in Earth's atmosphere, and the last-minute addition of a remote controlled vehicle that would not look out of place in a toy store, the Pathfinder mission was a doubter's dream. Vet the future prospects of JPL and of a Mars program in its infancy, depended on bouncing successfully onto the rocky Red Planet and releasing a curious six-wheeled wanderer, in hopes of starting a revolution in space exploration.
1971•
0
1998•
6.0
1990•
5.9
2020•
6.4
1994•
7.2
1997•
6.5
1996•
7.1
2016•
7.0
2023•
5.0
2024•
7.2
2009•
0
2016•
0
2018•
5.5
2017•
7.0
2015•
0
2018•
7.7
Budget: $0
Revenue: $0
