Going to Mars is trouble-free, as the two planets revolve around the sun and thus constantly move relative to each other. Earth and Mars are at the closest speed to each other every 26 months – and this is when Earthlings try to send missions to Mars.
Every two years since the 1960s, various space agencies have sent messages to Mars. Between 1976 and 1992, many of the launch windows were unused. At times, there have been several missions in a launch window.
But never in history have three spacecraft not gone to Mars in a single launch window. And never in history have so many space agencies simultaneously worked on a mission to Mars or a Mars orbit. There are currently 10 spacecraft from five different space agencies – the United States, the European Union, India, China, and the United Arab Emirates – either on or off Earth on Mars. Two other rovers – NASA stability and China Tianwen-1 – ready to land on Mars on February 18 and May 2021 respectively.
NASA (Mars Insight) has a ruler, a rover (Curiosity), and three orbiters (Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Odyssey, MAVEN); India has an orbiter (Mangalyaan-1); the EU has 2 orbiters (Mars Express and ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter); and China and UAE will have an orbiter each (Hope and Tianwen-1 respectively).
The movement of missions represents the spread of planetary exploration in general, and Mars exploration in particular. This is due to a reduction in start-up costs and cheaper access to the technology required in place survey.
Dr. Amitabha Ghosh is a NASA-based planetary scientist based in Washington DC. He has worked for several NASA Mars missions beginning with the Mars Pathfinder Mission in 1997. He was Chairman of the Science Operations Working Group for the Rover Exploration Rover Mission, and was asked to lead an innovative Rover Operations. on Mars for over 10 years. He helped analyze the first rock on Mars, which happened to be the first rock to be studied from another planet.
UAE hope mission
Two of the three missions launched for Mars last July are in progress. The UAE, a tiny but affluent country of <10 million people, has troubled the world by becoming the fifth national space agency (after the US, EU, Russia, and India) to reach Mars when the Hope Orbiter it entered orbital on February 9. The UAE defeated China in the race for Mars, albeit on a daily basis.
The UAE mission will study the Martian atmosphere, and will try to address the billion-dollar question of how and why Mars lost consciousness. The atmosphere has lost surface water loss, and perhaps the hospitable environment of your life.
The Chinese test
China National Space Agency reached Mars with lessons learned from a successful series of Chang’e missions to the Moon. In particular, the Chang’e 4 rover was able to survive more than 25 lunar nights (each night extends to 14 days on Earth) – this is an amazing engineering feat, as the temperature can go up down to –170 degrees C. The Chang’e 5 was able to return rock sample missions to Earth in December 2020.
Tianwen-1, the first mission to Mars from China, was successfully launched on Feb. 10. Tianwen-1 carries an orbiter, lander, and rover. China’s approach to rover removal is somewhat different. Unlike NASA rovers, Tianwen-1 will orbit Mars for a few months before attempting to land in May this year.
The spacecraft contains a series of instruments to address a range of scientific questions. Interestingly, a radar instrument enters the ground to observe water beneath the Martian surface. The rover is expected to land at Utopia Planitia, a place where there may be old groundwater deposits.
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This week, perseverance
NASA’s most solemn engineering mission, Perseverance Rover, is on its way to Mars, and is ready to land Thursday at Jezero Crater, which tended to be filled with water in the past . Touchdown is scheduled for around 3.55pm EST (2.25am on Friday India).
Perseverance is NASA’s 4th generation Mars Rover – starting with Sojourner from the Mars Pathfinder Mission in 1997, followed by Spirit and Opportunity from the Rover Exploration Rover Mission in 2004, and Curiosity from the Mars Science Laboratory in 2012.
The goal is to look for biosignatures in Jezero Crater’s dried lake bed. It is thought that early life on Mars may have been similar to marine life on Earth, such as stromatolites. If this were true, the persistence of fossils or some biosignatures – life-giving suggestions – would be found in the chemical measurements or in morphological observations.
In addition, persistence of oxygen on the Martian surface will bring for the first time, using atmospheric CO2 from the Martian atmosphere. Persistence lays down rock samples that will be returned to Earth by a subsequent European Space Agency / NASA mission.
A perseverance rover uses his drill to collect a rock sample on Mars in this undated art concept photo booklet. (NASA / JPL-Caltech / Handout via Reuters)
Musk’s Starship Campaign
The most spectacular preparation for a revitalized Mars exploration takes place out of mind, in a sleepy coastal city in East Texas. This is the only effort in the mix that is not financially written down by government money. SpaceX, a US-based private company inspired by Elon Musk and backed by select investors, has a long-term goal to start a commercial service to transport passengers to Mars. Boca Chica, a name that no one seems to have heard of in recent years, is now on the Starship development site, which represents, perhaps, the best picture of people landing on Mars.
A human mission to Mars has become a sacred tomb for space exploration. Ever since Neil Armstrong landed on the Moon 50 years ago, man has failed to advance to the next logical destination: Mars. The main reason is the huge price tag of the human Mars mission. Compared to the Moon, which is only about three days away, Mars is seven months away. Human behavior, in terms of engineering, translates into maintaining a temperature-controlled model. It also involves carrying materials needed by astronauts, including water and oxygen, for a trip of about 18 months.
In addition, human missions, unlike robotic spaceship missions, must be returned to Earth, which in engineering terms translates to transporting large amounts of fuel from Earth, in order to launch from Mars for the return trip. The complexity of engineering and the requirement of a larger mass of human missions to Mars, compared to the Moon, pushes costs to between $ 250 billion and $ 1 trillion. Starship promises to reduce mission costs by> 95% to as much as 99% by using multimodalities such as refueling the spacecraft in orbit, and producing rocket fuel on Mars using materials found on Mars (and therefore, fuel for the return trip would not need to be transported from Earth).
Decade of Mars missions
As the decade begins, there are several missions on the design board: obviously, the ESA ExoMars rover mission to return rock samples from Mars, ISRO plans for Mangalyaan-2, and China Space Agency plans for Tianwen-2 a return of rock samples. and Mars.
In addition, there are likely to be several flights of SpaceX’s Starship, first with cargo and finally with astronauts. In the history of mankind, 2020 will be remembered for the Covid-19 pandemic, but the 2020s may be the decade of spacecraft missions to Mars, culminating in the first human steps on Martian land.