Drawing on high quality animation, interviews with US, German and Russian engineers we describe the tools being built to get to Mars. NASA and the European Space Agency are collaborating on two future Mars missions (ExoMars), using an Atlas rocket to propel a lander to the red planet and then a rover, ultimately to remotely control a return mission bringing soil sample back to Earth, by 2026. The trajectory: getting to Mars is (at best) a 9 month trip there (500 days) and another 9 months back. Using the Hoffman Transfer Orbit, the spacecraft would transition from Earth's orbit to a wider trajectory that would eventually take it into the Mars orbit. However the opportunities for this kind of launch only occur every 26 months.
