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On the way to Mars.
NASA / JPL-Caltech
July 2020 was a great month for Mars. Taking advantage of its close position in orbit, three missions left the earth on a seven-month trip to the red planet. Now those spaceships … NASA’s Perseverance rover, the Tianwen-1 of the Chinese space agency and the The hope of the United Arab Emirates – are reaching their destination. They are poised to uncover the secrets that our heavenly neighbor hides within its barren plains and atmosphere and may even reveal relics of ancient life on the planet’s surface.
Although all three spacecraft will come to orbit around Mars this month, NASA’s Perseverance (or “Percy”) will take center stage. It will be the only mission to land on the surface this month, with an expected arrival date of February 18. Perseverance is based on an impressive story of interplanetary exploration, with its brother rover Curiosity next nine years on Mars, delivering stunning photographs and something puzzling facts.
That does not take anything away from the hope of the UAE, or Al Amal, and China’s Tianwen-1. Both spacecraft are expected to perform Mars Orbital Insertion Maneuvers, or MOIs, within a day of each other on February 9 and 10, respectively. Hope will stay in orbit and analyze the Martian atmosphere, but Tianwen-1 will attempt something that only two other nations have accomplished: landing on the hostile surface of Mars. China is expected to launch the Tianwen-1 landing and rover duo sometime in May.
Here’s a summary of the trip to Mars and what we can expect this month.
First place
Every 26 months, the orbits of Earth and Mars align in such a way that space agencies can take advantage of something known as a Hohmann transfer orbit.
“We do this kind of transfer orbit to use the least amount of fuel,” said James O’Donoghue, a planetary scientist at Japan’s JAXA space agency, told CNET last year. “It’s like passing a soccer ball to a striker, you have to aim where he is going to be.”
In July 2020, everything lined up perfectly and all three missions were out of here. Some quick facts:
The cadence of the launches means Hope will hit Mars first in February. It is expected to perform its MOI on February 9, dropping from 75,000 miles per hour to just 11,200. At approximately 7:42 am PT, the bus-length probe will arrive “to” Mars and begin transitioning to the science phase of the mission. The maneuver is fully autonomous, because the communication doesn’t work as fast as it does here on Earth – the interplanetary phone call has a delay of more than 13 minutes, so Hope will fly on its own from a set of preset instructions.
Tianwen-1’s arrival is a bit more mysterious. China’s space agency usually doesn’t reveal much information about its activities, even for a potentially historic mission like this one. According to the Chinese news service CCTV, it will be the second spacecraft to enter orbit on February 10.
Three spaceships, seven months
Although most of the science will be done when the spacecraft reaches Mars, scientists and engineers have been testing the capabilities of their spacecraft in the cruise phase of the mission. The journey itself is long, covering around 300 million miles (~ 480 million kilometers), and each agency has the opportunity to improve the trajectory of the ship for a perfect arrival. What else has been going on?
Last but not least
NASA’s Perseverance rover will land on February 18. Although NASA has a good record of landing on the red planet in recent decades, there are no guarantees: Mars is difficult.
“Success is never assured,” Allan Chen, lead engineer for the entry, descent and landing phase of the mission, said during a NASA news conference on January 27. “That’s especially true when we’re trying to land the biggest, heaviest, and most complicated rover we’ve ever built to the most dangerous place we’ve ever tried to land.”
the the space agency waits for the best landing footage ever, with a set of cameras and microphone ready to capture entry, descent, and landing. It is the first time that we can listens with the sounds of a Martian landing, providing an entirely new sensory experience for avid Mars fans. Sadly there’s no way that we can see LiveAs such, but NASA will provide coverage of the moment. We have a comprehensive guide on landing day on Mars and what to expect.
NASA’s Perseverance rover is ready to explore the wilderness of Mars
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How to see NASA’s perseverance landing on Mars
If you are looking to catch the Perseverance rover landing on February 18, we’ve got you covered and you can access the stream right here. And if you’re interested in all the other great celestial events and rocket launches, we recommend that you sync your calendar with CNET’s Space Calendar; you will never miss a pitch again.
