Mars Pathfinder

Oh, okay.

Mars Pathfinder, largest.

Okay.

Mars rover.

And that same year, the US space program also launched a Mars lander and a rugged vehicle and mobile science lab designed to explore the craggy Martian landscape called a rover.

The Pathfinder landing craft touched down on Mars' Ares Vallis and delivered the Sojourner rover, the first ever robotic rover vehicle on Mars.

These returned more exciting new data and images from the planet's surface.

The year 1996 also saw an electrifying, if controversial, announcement in the search for Martian life.

Technology that dressed the Apollo astronauts and crafted the landing airbags for the Mars Pathfinder mission is being used to launch a fleet of modern airships.

This is Innovation Now, bringing you stories behind the ideas that shape our future.

A spacesuit isn't a simple article of clothing.

So Sanders makes the call, do not tell the crew of the Ares that Watney's alive.

Watney then explores the surrounding terrain and studies his maps, and he quickly journeys out to retrieve the Pathfinder probe, hoping to restore its communications.

Kapoor realizes this strategy and quickly visits Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

We're going to call that JPL throughout the rest of this episode, folks.

What plan is hatched next, Warwick?

So this again shows Watney's remarkable creativity and his ability to think outside the box.

So he remembers the Pathfinder probe from 1997, and he takes the rover out to find it, thinking that maybe he can use this to communicate with NASA.

Because remember that whatever communications array they had back at base camp was destroyed in the storm.

Also worth noting.

Mars Pathfinder, we were going to Mars, and, uh, cloning some sheep.

With Dolly the, uh, Dolly the Sheep.

Now Noah's got a, uh, a bit of a movie montage bit.