After the devastating loss of two backtoback missions to Mars in 1999, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory found itself at a crossroads: Would the lab pull back, becoming more cautious and conservative with the new missions it was willing to take on? Or would JPL continue its tradition of pursuing challenging and innovative missions?

That question was answered when JPL proposed designing and building an entirely new type of Mars rover from scratch on top of an extremely tight schedule, and launching not one, but two of them to the Red Planet.

“Mission to Mars” tells how engineers and scientists overcame multiple adversities to design, build, test, and launch the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, two of NASA’s most storied missions.

Documentary length: 60 minutes