Some is known about what the future holds for Deimos, Phobos, and the Red Planet. We know human explorers will journey there in the near future. Within the next 30 years, there will be 14 individual launch windows for either short- or long-stay missions. Though Mars is distant, we are far better prepared today to send humans than we were to travel to the Moon at the commencement of the space age. The US has plans for humanity to return to the lunar surface as early as 2018 in preparation for an eventual humans-to-Mars mission.

The new crew spacecraft Orion (in development) will establish a program to send humans back to the Moon and then to Mars and beyond. As part of NASA's Constellation Program, the Orion crew exploration vehicle will have more volume than the Apollo capsules, reducing development time, boosting stability, and permitting reliable travel for six or more crewmembers. The spacecraft will also be able to carry crew and cargo to the International Space Station. Orion will begin flights in the early part of the next decade, after the Space Shuttle fleet retires from human space flight with NASA in two years.

Prior to the Space Shuttle retirement in June 2010, the Mars Society will be on the Martian surface with our Scout concept, which will land in the northern arctic plains later this month. The Phoenix Scout Mission was selected by NASA as the first mission to be flown as part of the Mars Scout Program, a highly competitive program allowing varied entities based within industry, academia, and government to propose missions and vie for sponsorship based on relative merit in science, cost, and risk. Contributions to the Phoenix Scout Mission come from the US, Canada, Switzerland, and Germany.

Under the name "Mars Discovery," this program was first proposed by the Mars Society at our 1998 Founding Convention as a principal way to augment the robotic Mars Exploration Program with an assortment of highly creative concepts from across the scientific community. NASA instituted the concept in 2000. Subsequently, a competition was held, and Phoenix was selected from a field of more than 30 concepts in competition in 2003.

Phoenix will land near the Martian North Pole on 25 May 2008 in search of evidence to help solve the puzzle of past or present Martian life. It will utilize the idle Mars Surveyor 2001 Lander, which was cancelled after the 1999 failure of the Mars Polar lander at the Martian South Pole. Phoenix will use a soft-landing system that employs rocket thrusters instead of airbags. Such soft-landing systems will be imperative for future human exploration missions.

The China National Space Administration announced in March 2007 that it will launch a joint mission with the Russian Federal Space Agency in October 2009. The mission includes a Chinese Mars survey satellite, which will launch on board a Russian spacecraft. Its Phobos Explorer will collect samples from Mars and its closest moon in 2010, and then it will return to Earth.

The US plans to launch Mars Science Laboratory in December 2009. MSL, with instruments from Canada, Russia, Spain, and the US, will explore the Martian surface with a long-range, long-duration roving science laboratory that will be a major leap forward in surface measurements. The MSL rover will be twice as long and three times as heavy as its two current cousins, Spirit and Opportunity. Moreover, it will pave the way for a soil and rock sample return mission in 2014 or 2016.

Expected to launch in 2013 is the ExoMars rover of the European Space Agency, which will extend the characterization of the biological environment in preparation for more robotic missions and eventual human exploration. Data from the mission are anticipated to provide input for broader exobiological research. The project is part of the ESA's long-term Aurora plan for robot and human exploration of the Solar System, with the Moon, asteroids, and Mars as prime objectives. The ESA could also launch a sample return mission in 2015 or 2018.