9 Mars Missions That Will Widen Your Scope of Space Exploration

You can expect this Wall-E look alike to make its Mars debut sometime in 2019. It's going to be roamin' around looking for biosignatures on the planet at that time. 

This orbiter comes with an incredibly powerful camera and maps the surface of Mars for geological study. And recognize the subject of this photo? It's the Curiosity rover, parachuting down to the surface of the planet. 

A pretty critical project, this is the NASA satellite that's still orbiting the big red planet trying to locate sources of ice/water.

The European Space Agency are behind this orbiter, and it's in search of all kinds of minerals. 

This one is coming to a planet near you sometime next year, and its job is to drill into the soil in Mars and retrieve samples to get a better idea of the geology of Mars itself. 

One of the more famous of the Mars projects, this is a sort of all-encompassing rover that's simply trying to answer some questions (aptly named). It's trying to find out as much as it can about the planet, and whether or not it would make a viable option for human visits in the future. 

This LOOKS like something out of a freaking Star Wars film, and will be collecting samples to study the resources on Mars and check for previous signs of life. 

This rover has been a huge source of geological information about Mars since 2004, but is facing the axe in terms of federal funding. 

This has been orbiting Mars since last year and its objective is to take information-heavy photos and gather some information re: atmospheric science. The communication package from Maven was also incredibly critical for the success of Curiosity.