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With missions from three nations expected to reach the Red Planet this month, 2021 could be the most enlightening year in the history of Mars research.
Earthlings have been sending probes and robots to and near Mars since the 1960s, and dozens have successfully captured images and data about the planet, gradually revealing its desert mysteries. We’ve learned a bit about its geology and atmosphere, we’ve found ice, and we’ve discovered compelling evidence that Mars was once home to blue oceans.
Now, we are looking more deeply. Coming missions will look for evidence of past life on Mars, collect a comprehensive picture of the planet’s weather systems, prepare soil samples to be collected by a future mission, and even attempt the first flight to Mars (via a small helicopter ).
Perseverance, NASA’s fifth Mars rover, arrives from the United States. In the country’s first independent mission to Mars, China is sending Tianwen-1. And the United Arab Emirates’ Hope orbiter will be the first interplanetary mission of any Arab nation.
All three missions launched from Earth in July 2020. Hopefully, by the end of 2021, they will teach us a lot of new things about Mars.
The mission of perseverance
NASA’s Perseverance is expected to land in Jezero Crater, just north of the Martian equator.
“We are going to go to a very old area of Mars and we hope that because the climate was warmer and more humid about 3.5 million years ago, which is the age of these rocks that we are seeing, if life had a chance to arrive. , this might be a good place to look for that evidence, “said Mitch Schulte, NASA Mars 2020 program scientist.
Once the rover lands, it will check that its science parts and instruments are working, which can take a month or two. But once you’re ready, you can begin your past life search.
Perseverance is equipped with cameras, lasers, and other instruments to help you examine Mars and search for traces of atoms left behind by tiny life forms.
Schulte was in charge of the process that determined which instruments would be included in the rover. That process concluded in 2014, two years after the team began developing this mission.
“The instruments in the rover’s arm will be able to detect the presence of organic matter, but we don’t expect dinosaur bones or anything like that,” Schulte said. “We are really looking at fine details in the environment that organisms could have inhabited.”
Those instruments on the rover’s arm are called and. SHERLOC can hit surfaces two inches away with an ultraviolet laser to detect organic chemicals, and is associated with a camera called WATSON.
PIXL uses an X-ray beam to search for organic material, the traces of which can last for millions of years after a microscopic organism lived.
Before its search begins, the rover will attempt to launch the first flight to Mars. Aboard Perseverance is the ingenuity, a roughly 4-pound drone equipped with a camera. It can fly for about 90 seconds, covering nearly 1,000 feet at heights of 10 to 15 feet on preset paths. It works with solar energy and can recharge its own battery.
“This will be the first time that anything has ever flown on another planet. That’s pretty spectacular, ”said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA’s Mars Exploration Program. As lead scientist, Meyer works with the global community of Mars scientists to determine what the next steps in Mars exploration should be and how missions should proceed in the future.
“This will be the first time that anything has ever flown on another planet. That is quite spectacular.”
If the test flight goes well, it could open a way for other drones in space exploration, which could survey planets between the far scale of orbiters and the scale of six-foot-tall rovers.
“It really improves your chances of where you should go and take samples,” Meyer said. “That outcrop that you can’t see from the rover or that you can’t see from space could be the perfect place to take a sample. As you think more about this and we learn more about how to fly on Mars, you may start to think about putting other things in it that can collect samples, do things for you that might be too dangerous or steep to get a bum. “
An artist’s rendering of the first flight to Mars with the Ingenuity helicopter.
Mars has a lot of carbon dioxide, but little oxygen. So Perseverance will use a tool called MOXIE to “get the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, compress it, and then use a solid oxide cell to extract the oxygen,” Schulte said.
If the test is successful, MOXIE could be used to provide breathing air to future astronauts. Oxygen is also a vital component of rocket fuel. If spacecraft could be launched from Earth with less fuel for the return trip, they could carry more cargo with the same amount of fuel, or alternatively they would need less fuel thanks to the lighter cargo.
Eventually, a mission will be sent to collect 43 sample tubes that Perseverance will have filled and stored within himself until they are ready to be left outside.
Scientists on Earth will have to determine where to collect the samples, and where and when to place them. There is some debate about the timing. If the samples are not deposited and something unexpected happens to the rover, they would be inaccessible for the collection mission, Meyer explained.
“The scientific community and engineers will be nervous to have all these samples on board,” Meyer said. “When they are on board, you cannot access them. They are in the trunk but the trunk is closed. At some point you have to decide to let those samples go, put them on the surface of Mars, so that the future mission can collect them. “
By the end of the year, we can get an idea of where the samples will be waiting for their ferry back to Earth.
The goals of Tianwen-1
While the China National Space Administration has not made much information publicly available about Tianwen-1, the agency has released its main objectives and what it will release.
Between the orbiter and the rover, Tianwen-1 will use various cameras, radars and other tools to examine the soil, structure and climate of Mars, especially by observing the presence of water and ice on the planet’s soil, according to a report. article published in Nature Astronomy.
After the lander settles down, a ramp will allow the rover to roll over the surface of Utopia Planitia, a wide plain hundreds of miles northwest of where Curiosity has scanned and northeast of where Perseverance is headed.
Despite having little information about the Tianwen-1 mission, Meyer said the fact that the rover is going somewhere new is exciting.
“Let’s face it, every time you send a rover and land in a place where you have not landed before, you will learn something new, because now you are seeing a new place up close and personal,” he said. .
Meanwhile, the orbiter will serve as a communications relay between the rover and Earth. It will also observe Mars to help analyze the planet’s atmosphere and subsurface.
Sending hope to orbit
The UAE has much more information about its Hope orbital mission, so named because the UAE Space Agency would like it to inspire people in the Middle East.
The main purpose of the Hope orbiter is to observe, measure and analyze the Martian atmosphere. On board you have an infrared spectrometer, ultraviolet spectrometer, and an imager to capture high-resolution photos.
Its infrared spectrometer will be used to study the lower atmosphere, measuring dust, ice clouds and the distribution of water vapor, as well as temperature. This will help us understand the atmospheric circulation and the seasons of the planet.
Hope’s UV spectrometer will measure gases in the thermosphere (the second highest layer of the atmosphere), including carbon monoxide and oxygen. And it will create a 3D map of hydrogen and oxygen in the exosphere, the outermost layer of the atmosphere.
The Hope Orbiter is inspected prior to launch.
While there are other Mars orbiters, like NASA’s MAVEN, Meyer said Hope’s physical orbit is unique – it’s very large and equatorial.
Other orbiters like MAVEN orbit around the poles of Mars, running north-south as the planet rotates below. They also stay much closer to the planet, which can give a more detailed view of the planet but limits its breadth, Meyer said.
“Due to the large orbit, it is something like 40,000 km the furthest, [Hope is] you will be able to see Mars as an entire planet, this synoptic view, ”Meyer said, noting that it will complement MAVEN and other missions very well.
Additionally, Hope will measure atmospheric exhaust, specifically by looking at hydrogen and oxygen. Scientists know this happens, but they have not yet been able to measure accurately.
Once Hope reaches Mars, it won’t be long before Earth receives new images and measurements of the Martian climate.
Long time coming
As Schulte and Meyer explained, reaching this level of exploration of Mars has been a long process. The Perseverance mission is a step in an astrobiological strategy that was established in 1995.
Previously, NASA was able to “determine that there was liquid water scattered near the surface of Mars,” Schulte said. “That naturally led to looking for signs in the rock records that life might have left on Mars.”
NASA Attitude Control Systems Leader Chris Pong wears a mask while continuing the mission to Mars during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Now that technology has caught up with your curiosity, your hard work is paying off, despite the worst pandemic in a century.
“Everything is already difficult and you add the pandemic in which people have to isolate themselves and people have to be away from their families for long periods of time,” Meyer said. “It is quite amazing the challenges that people have overcome to make these missions successful.”
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