The Mars Pathfinder

On July 4, 1997, the Mars Pathfinder landed on Mars. Since then the Mars Pathfinder has returned to NASA 2.6 billion bits of information, 16,550 images of Mars,(550 from the rover, 16,000 from the lander) and 15 chemical analyses of rock. It also studied a Mars rock nicknamed Chimp with an alpha proton X-ray spectrometer. When the lander was going through the Martian atmosphere, it used a 36 foot parachute to help land, and airbags to cushion the impact.

On Saturday, September 27, 1997, the Mars Pathfinder team had problems communicating with it. On October 1, the team got a signal from the spacecraft's auxiliary transmitter. Then another signal on October 6th. The problems happened because of the low battery.

The Mars Pathfinder team was going to go on its longest journey, 165 feet around the lander to perform experiments and exercises but this was not initiated. The soil chemistry at Ares Vallis was similar to Viking 1 and 2 landing sites (which had a lot of iron in it). This also happened on July 4th.

I got some information from http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/mars/news/11-04.txt