Part of Earth's early Mars exploration program, the Ares series of vessels were intended to land two person teams on the surface whilst a third remained in orbit above. The Ares IV was powered by a third generation ion drive, and used titanium and polymer composites in her construction. Sensor systems included a Lidar scanner and a trans-spectral imager.

The crew of the Ares IV consisted of Lieutenant John Kelley, Rose Kumagawa and Andrei Novakovich. On October 19th 2032 the Ares IV was thought destroyed when it was lost inside a graviton ellipse. Kumagawa and Novakovich were stranded on the surface of the planet for weeks before rescue arrived, and the incident almost derailed the entire Mars program.

Amazingly, on Stardate 53292.7 the USS Voyager found the Ares IV still relatively intact within the graviton ellipse. They were able to download Lieutenant Kelly's records, and found that he had lived for weeks after being stranded inside. Kelley had spent his last days scanning the various debris inside the anomaly, discovering amongst other things an alien spacecraft. Voyager failed to recover the Ares IV, but was able to retrieve the body of Lieutenant Kelley and give it a proper burial in space.