CAPE CANAVERAL: After injuring hundreds of millions of miles through space since last summer, three robotic explorers are ready to hit the brakes at Mars.
The stakes – and confusion – are high in the skies.
The United Arab Emirates orbiter will reach Mars on Tuesday, followed less than 24 hours later by China’s orbiter-rover combo. NASA’s rover, the cosmic caboose, will come into view a week later, on February 18, to gather rocks to return to Earth – a key step in determining whether there has ever been life on Mars.
Both the UAE and China are newcomers to Mars, where more than half of Earth’s origins have failed. Mars’ first mission in China, a joint effort with Russia in 2011, never made it past Earth’s orbit.
“We are excited as engineers and scientists, at the same time stressed and happy, anxious, scared,” said Omran Sharaf, UAE project manager.
The three spacecraft crashed within days of each other last July, during an Earth-to-Mars launch window that only happens every two years. That’s why their messengers are so close together too.
Called Amal, or Hope in Arabic, the Gulf nation’s spacecraft seeks a particularly high orbit – 13,500 by 27,000 miles high (22,000 kilometers by 44,000 kilometers) – better for weather monitoring Martian.
The Chinese duo – known as Tianwen-1, or “Quest for Heavenly Truth” – stays in orbit until May, when the rover separates to come down to the dusty, reddish surface. If all goes well, it will be only the second country to successfully land on the red planet.
The U.S. Perserverance rover, by contrast, will immediately dive in for a spacecraft rod similar to the large Martian entry of the Curiosity rover in 2012. The odds are in NASA’s favor: He has made eight of his nine attempts to come to Mars.
Despite their differences – the 1-tonne durability is larger and more complex than the Tianwen-1 rover – both crush for signs of the life of an old microscope.
The $ 3 billion Perseverance mission is the first step in the U.S.-European effort to bring Mars samples to Earth in the next decade.
“To say we’re pumped about it, well that would be a big understatement,” said Lori Glaze, NASA’s director of planetary science.
Perseverance is aimed at an ancient river delta that seems to be a logical place to harbor for life. This landing area in Jezero Crater is so horrible that NASA submitted it for Curiosity, but so tantalizing that scientists are willing to grab its rocks.
“When scientists look at a site like Jezero Crater, they see the promise, right?” said Al Chen, who heads the entry, rescue and landing team at NASA ‘s Jet Dedication Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “When I look at Jezero, I see danger. Danger is everywhere. ”Steep cliffs, deep gullies and rock fields can cause stability or decline, after falling seven minutes into the atmosphere. With an 11 1/2-minute communication delay each way, the rover will be on its own, unable to be trusted by flight controllers. Amal and Tianwen-1 also need to function independently as they move into orbit.
Towards permanence, NASA was looking for flat, shallow ground to land – “one big parking lot,” Chen said. That’s what China’s Tianwen-1 rover will fire at Mars ’Utopia Planitia.
NASA is stepping up its game thanks to new navigation technology designed to steer the rover to safety. The spacecraft also has several cameras and microphones to descend and land scenes and sounds, first Martian.
Faster than previous Mars vehicles but still moving at glacial speeds, the six-wheeled Stability drives over Jezero, collecting basic samples of the most interesting rocks and gravel. The rover will set aside the samples for retrieval with a fetch rover launching in 2026.
Under an elegant plan that had yet to be worked out by NASA and the European Space Agency, the geological treasure on Earth would arrive in the early 2030s. Scientists believe this is the only way to find out if life on wet, aquatic Mars flourished 3 billion to 4 billion years ago.
NASA science mission leader Thomas Zurbuchen believes it is “one of the hardest things humanity has ever done and certainly in space science.” The U.S. is still the only country that successfully landed on Mars, beginning with the Vikings 1976. Two spacecraft are still active on the surface: Curiosity and InSight.
Meanwhile, a Russian and European spacecraft lost its Martian landscape, along with Mars’ polar Lander Lander since 1999.
Getting into orbit around Mars isn’t that complicated, but still not an easy task, with about a dozen spacecraft falling short. Mars airstrikes were the rage in the 1960s and most failed; NASA’s Mariner 4 was the first to succeed in 1965.
There are currently six spacecraft operating around Mars: three from the USA, two from Europe and one from India. The UAE hopes to make seven with its $ 200-plus million mission.
The UAE is particularly proud that Amal was designed and built by its own citizens, who were in partnership with the University of Colorado at Boulder and other U.S. institutions, who were not directly purchased from overseas. When he arrived on Mars at the same time as the 50th anniversary of the country’s founding.
“The start of the year with this milestone is something very important for the people of the UAE,” said Sharaf.
China did not show much in advance. The exact arrival time of the spacecraft on Wednesday has not been announced.
The stakes – and confusion – are high in the skies.
The United Arab Emirates orbiter will reach Mars on Tuesday, followed less than 24 hours later by China’s orbiter-rover combo. NASA’s rover, the cosmic caboose, will come into view a week later, on February 18, to gather rocks to return to Earth – a key step in determining whether there has ever been life on Mars.
Both the UAE and China are newcomers to Mars, where more than half of Earth’s origins have failed. Mars’ first mission in China, a joint effort with Russia in 2011, never made it past Earth’s orbit.
“We are excited as engineers and scientists, at the same time stressed and happy, anxious, scared,” said Omran Sharaf, UAE project manager.
The three spacecraft crashed within days of each other last July, during an Earth-to-Mars launch window that only happens every two years. That’s why their messengers are so close together too.
Called Amal, or Hope in Arabic, the Gulf nation’s spacecraft seeks a particularly high orbit – 13,500 by 27,000 miles high (22,000 kilometers by 44,000 kilometers) – better for weather monitoring Martian.
The Chinese duo – known as Tianwen-1, or “Quest for Heavenly Truth” – stays in orbit until May, when the rover separates to come down to the dusty, reddish surface. If all goes well, it will be only the second country to successfully land on the red planet.
The U.S. Perserverance rover, by contrast, will immediately dive in for a spacecraft rod similar to the large Martian entry of the Curiosity rover in 2012. The odds are in NASA’s favor: He has made eight of his nine attempts to come to Mars.
Despite their differences – the 1-tonne durability is larger and more complex than the Tianwen-1 rover – both crush for signs of the life of an old microscope.
The $ 3 billion Perseverance mission is the first step in the U.S.-European effort to bring Mars samples to Earth in the next decade.
“To say we’re pumped about it, well that would be a big understatement,” said Lori Glaze, NASA’s director of planetary science.
Perseverance is aimed at an ancient river delta that seems to be a logical place to harbor for life. This landing area in Jezero Crater is so horrible that NASA submitted it for Curiosity, but so tantalizing that scientists are willing to grab its rocks.
“When scientists look at a site like Jezero Crater, they see the promise, right?” said Al Chen, who heads the entry, rescue and landing team at NASA ‘s Jet Dedication Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “When I look at Jezero, I see danger. Danger is everywhere. ”Steep cliffs, deep gullies and rock fields can cause stability or decline, after falling seven minutes into the atmosphere. With an 11 1/2-minute communication delay each way, the rover will be on its own, unable to be trusted by flight controllers. Amal and Tianwen-1 also need to function independently as they move into orbit.
Towards permanence, NASA was looking for flat, shallow ground to land – “one big parking lot,” Chen said. That’s what China’s Tianwen-1 rover will fire at Mars ’Utopia Planitia.
NASA is stepping up its game thanks to new navigation technology designed to steer the rover to safety. The spacecraft also has several cameras and microphones to descend and land scenes and sounds, first Martian.
Faster than previous Mars vehicles but still moving at glacial speeds, the six-wheeled Stability drives over Jezero, collecting basic samples of the most interesting rocks and gravel. The rover will set aside the samples for retrieval with a fetch rover launching in 2026.
Under an elegant plan that had yet to be worked out by NASA and the European Space Agency, the geological treasure on Earth would arrive in the early 2030s. Scientists believe this is the only way to find out if life on wet, aquatic Mars flourished 3 billion to 4 billion years ago.
NASA science mission leader Thomas Zurbuchen believes it is “one of the hardest things humanity has ever done and certainly in space science.” The U.S. is still the only country that successfully landed on Mars, beginning with the Vikings 1976. Two spacecraft are still active on the surface: Curiosity and InSight.
Meanwhile, a Russian and European spacecraft lost its Martian landscape, along with Mars’ polar Lander Lander since 1999.
Getting into orbit around Mars isn’t that complicated, but still not an easy task, with about a dozen spacecraft falling short. Mars airstrikes were the rage in the 1960s and most failed; NASA’s Mariner 4 was the first to succeed in 1965.
There are currently six spacecraft operating around Mars: three from the USA, two from Europe and one from India. The UAE hopes to make seven with its $ 200-plus million mission.
The UAE is particularly proud that Amal was designed and built by its own citizens, who were in partnership with the University of Colorado at Boulder and other U.S. institutions, who were not directly purchased from overseas. When he arrived on Mars at the same time as the 50th anniversary of the country’s founding.
“The start of the year with this milestone is something very important for the people of the UAE,” said Sharaf.
China did not show much in advance. The exact arrival time of the spacecraft on Wednesday has not been announced.