To recognize and locate artificial targets of a rover and a lander in Mars exploration, a two-step artificial target location method is proposed by combination of the characters of artificial targets of the curiosity rover with Mars environments. The first step is to recognize the artificial targets in the image and to locate them preliminary. The edge information is obtained by edge detection, and contour feature-points are extracted by edge tracing. As the artificial targets in the Mars surface environment always are adhered and deposited by dust particles and are suffer from the uneven illumination and shadow block, the paper proposes an adaptive edge detection algorithm based on Mars environment. The algorithm uses least square ellipse fitting method to fit and recognize the artificial targets in the image and locate the center of each artificial target preliminary. The secont step is to locate every artificial targets accurately. According to the preliminary result of ellipse fitting, the image is cut into pieces with one ellipse in each piece. Since the center of the artificial target is the intersection point of two intersecting lines, the Hough transform is used to detect the lines. The coordinate of intersection point is relocated and to obtain the center of the artificial target precisely. Experiments are carried out based on artificial target images of curiosity rover. The experimental results indicate that the method proposed can be used in the targets with largely deformation, and the location accuracy is within 1 pixel. The method is robust to the dust adhesion, illumination and shadow effects, and satisfies the Mars exploration system requirements for the resolution and robustness.