Mars Pathfinder - Mission Objectives

Mission Objectives

  • To prove that the development of "faster, better and cheaper" spacecraft was possible (with three years for development and a cost under $150 million).
  • To show that it was possible to send a load of scientific instruments to another planet with a simple system and at one fifteenth the cost of a Viking mission. (For comparison, the Viking missions cost $935 million in 1974 or $3.5 billion in 1997 dollars)
  • To demonstrate NASA's commitment to low-cost planetary exploration by finishing the mission with a total expenditure of $280 million, including the launch vehicle and mission operations.

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