NASA Stationary Mars Landers

A class of NASA robotic spacecraft that touch down on the surface of Mars and remain fixed at their landing site to conduct science, rather than carrying a mobile rover as their primary instrument platform. Mars Pathfinder, launched in December 1996 and landed in July 1997, was renamed the Carl Sagan Memorial Station after touchdown and served as the base station and communications relay for the small Sojourner rover it carried, while also conducting its own surface science. InSight, launched in 2018 and managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, was built by Lockheed Martin Space to study the deep interior of Mars, and confirmed the existence of marsquakes using a seismometer placed directly on the surface near the stationary lander. Both spacecraft used a lander body as the primary long term science platform at a single fixed location, distinguishing this class from NASA's mobile rover missions and from the earlier Viking program landers that combined lander and orbiter in one mission.