1996

In 1995 NASA was handed over the DC-X test program from the Department of Defense's Strategic Defense Initiative Organisation. It was a prototype for a larger single-stage-to-orbit vehicle and was build by McDonnell Douglas.

Conceived as the first mission in the Mars Environmental SURvey (MESUR) program but developed as the second Discovery mission, the Sojourner rover was built by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.