Rather than sending sterile probes to Mars, send some filled with mosses, algae, and beneficial nematodes...
https://bogology.org/2013/10/16/how-do-mosses-survive-in-antarctica/
from link:
“... mosses have lots of attributes that facilitate their survival and growth ...:
Low growing: this protects the plants from damage by the almost constant, strong winds that are blowing – as well as being the coldest, Antarctica is the windiest continent on the planet.
Slow growing: Antarctic moss banks have historically accumulated at approximately 1 mm per year. This is very slow! However, the mosses do not need to complete their life cycle in a single year as many vascular plants do; indeed the moss banks on Elephant Island have been accumulating almost continuously for over 5000 years. Slow and steady wins the game in Antarctica.
Asexual reproduction: it is too cold for many of the Antarctic moss species to produce spores (the moss ‘equivalent’ to seeds), so instead the plants spread asexually and new, complete moss plants can often regenerate from a small section of an existing moss plant.
...strong winds...
Another misconception from that stupid movie about a Martian potato farmer. Even at 150 mph just how strong of a wind can it be at 5% of the density of our atmosphere? Gentle breeze is more like it.