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This undetermined photograph shows NASA's Viking ship in a Mars simulation lab. The two cylinders on the top of the lander are surveillance cameras, and under the right-hand camera is one of the three missile engines used for finishing the final landing on Mars. Viking 1 was launched on August 20, 1975 and arrived on Mars on June 19, 1976. Viking 2 was launched on September 9, 1975, and entered Mars orbit on August 7, 1976. The twins of Viking were the first successful hooks on Mars on planet Earth. (AP Photo)
Mars has an ugly habit of living up to its mythological name and penetrating the Earth when it comes to accepting visitors.
NASA's InSight is the latest spacecraft to come in, with every intention of landing and digging deeper on the planet than anything has ever come before. Lander arrives on Mars Monday after a six-month trip.
"We already have a number of successful landings, but you never know what Mars will do," said Rob Grover, chief engineer for the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Mars landing is always risky, Grover and other experts emphasize each occasion.
"Our work with the landing team is to be paranoid about what could go wrong and make sure we do everything we can to make sure things are going well," he said,
The numbers support him. Only about 40% of all missions on Mars – named after the Roman god of war – have succeeded.
"We're going to Mars is really very hard," said Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA's science fellow at the beginning of this week. "As humanity, explorers from all over the world, we fight 50% or less."
The United States is the only country that successfully operates a spacecraft on the Martian surface. InSight is NASA's new attempt to put a spacecraft on Mars; only one effort failed.

This is the twelfth image of a series of twenty-two, which includes the three-dimensional panorama of Mars, as seen from Mars Pathfinder in this picture released by NASA on Friday July 11, 1997. InSight of NASA arrives Monday at Mars , November 26, after a six-month trip. (AP Photo / JPL)
The latest NASA Curiosity Shuttle is still in motion after six years, with more than 20 kilometers per kilometer. The older and smaller opportunity of the space agency took place until June, when a global dust storm left it out of service. Flight controllers have not yet given up hope that they will be revived.
The history of humanity's nearly 60 years of trying to reach Mars includes attempts to fly beyond the red planet to take pictures without stopping, as well as much more complicated efforts to place spacecraft in orbit around the red planet and actually land.
NASA's Mariner 4 made the first successful navigation of the red planet in 1965, sending back 21 photos.
Mariner 9 made it orbit around Mars and sent more than 7,000 photos.
NASA V1s and 2s not only set spacecraft in orbit around Mars in 1976, but also on the surface. The twin vikings were the first successful hooks on Mars on planet Earth.
This combination of enhanced color images provided by NASA shows Mars Pathfinder's sunrise on Mars. (AP Photo / NASA TV)
The 1990s were not as good for NASA. A humiliating English-metric conversion convicted the Mars Observer in 1993. Another US orbital was later lost, as well as a lander and two companion probes that had the role of penetrating the surface.
In spite of decades of testing, Russia, in particular, was lucky with Mars.
The then Soviet Union was the first to try a Mars flying operation in 1960. The space ship never reached the Earth's orbit. After several flying failures and flight failures, the Soviets received a pair of spacecraft on Mars orbit in 1971 and received real data. But the band of comrades was a total bust.
And so did the Soviets / Russians in the most recent attempt with China in 2011. The discouraging objective was to land a spacecraft on Mars Phobos to collect and return samples and to put a second spacecraft in orbit around the planet Mars. He did not even get out of the Earth's orbit.
Europe was also bitten the serpent at Mars, just like Japan.

In this photograph photo of 4 February 2004, Edward Tunstel Jr., has left a mobility engineer, informs a reporter about the ability of Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity using this full version of work at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Mars has an ugly habit of living up to its mythological name and acquiring Earth when it comes to accepting visitors. NASA's InSight is the latest spacecraft to come in, with every intention of landing and digging deeper on the planet than anything has ever come before. Lander arrives at Mars on Monday, November 26, after a six-month trip. (AP Photo / Ric Francis, File)
While the European Space Agency has satellites that work around Mars, both landing attempts have flopped. Just two years ago, his lander hit the surface so quickly, dug a crater. The only Japanese Mars ship launched in 1998 did not get into orbit.
India, meanwhile, operates a satellite around Mars for four years, its first and only shot on the red planet.
There is a heavy European presence on NASA's InSight. Germany deals with the mechanical swamp designed to splash on the Martian surface with a height of 5 meters to perform underground heat measurements, while France is leading the Earthquake Monitoring Seismometer.
Surface, Curiosity is the only thing that works on Mars. Currently in orbit: US Odyssey since 2001, Mars Express from Europe (2003), US Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (2006), US Maven (2014), Mangalyaan orbiter (2014) and European Trace Gas Orbiter (2016).
In this photo of June 26, 2007, a technician checks NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida (AP Photo / Peter Cosgrove, File)
In this case, Adam Steltzner, JPL's Mars Science Laboratory's entry, take-off and landing lender, uses a scalable model to explain the Curiosity Rover process during the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Rover Curiosity Caller NASA is still in motion after six years, with more than 20 kilometers per kilometer. (AP Photo / Damian Dovarganes, File)
This Sunday, August 5, 2012, NASA's photo shows the Curiosity rover, the bottom, and its parachute descending to the surface from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's point of view. NASA Curiosity Rover is still on the move six years later, with more than 20 kilometers per kilometer. (AP Photo / NASA)

This picture, taken from a series of photographs of June 15, 2018, shows a self portrait of NASA's Curiosity Rover Rover in the Gale crater. The arm of the rover holding the camera was positioned from each of the dozens of photographs that make up the mosaic. A dust storm lowered the sunlight and visibility at the rover location. (NASA / JPL-Caltech through AP)

This composite image released by NASA shows a panoramic view of Sharp Mountain, made from dozens of photos by NASA's Curiosity Rover. (NASA through AP, File)

This image provided by NASA shows a map of landing sites for current and past missions of NASA on Mars. (NASA through AP)
Continue to explore:
Five things to know about Mars landing on InSight
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