Going to Mars is not trivial, since both planets revolve around the Sun and are therefore in constant motion with each other. Earth and Mars are the closest distance from each other every 26 months, and that’s when Earthlings try to send missions to Mars.
Every two years since the 1960s, different space agencies have sent missions to Mars. Between 1976 and 1992, many launch windows were not used. At times, there have been multiple missions in a launch window.
But never in history did three space agencies go to Mars in a single launch window. And never in history have so many space agencies simultaneously operated a mission to Mars or the orbit of Mars. There are currently 10 spacecraft from five different space agencies (United States, European Union, India, China, and United Arab Emirates) in orbit or on the ground on Mars. Two more rovers … The perseverance of NASA and china Tianwen-1 – are scheduled to land on Mars on February 18 and May 2021 respectively.
NASA has a lander (Mars Insight), 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 the United Arab Emirates will each have one orbiter (Hope and Tianwen-1 respectively).
The flotilla of missions represents the expansion of planetary exploration in general and the exploration of Mars in particular. This is due to a reduction in launch costs and the cheaper availability of the technology required in space exploration.
Dr. Amitabha Ghosh is a NASA planetary scientist based in Washington DC. He has worked for multiple NASA missions to Mars beginning with the Mars Pathfinder Mission in 1997. He served as Chair of the Science Operations Task Force for the Mars Exploration Rover Mission, and was tasked with leading Rover’s tactical operations on Mars. for more than 10 years. He helped analyze the first rock on Mars, which happened to be the first rock analyzed from another planet.
The UAE Mission of Hope
Two of the three missions launched to Mars last July are already operational. The United Arab Emirates, a small but rich country of fewer than 10 million people, dazzled the world by becoming the fifth national space agency (after the US, the EU, Russia and India) to reach Mars when the Hope Orbiter underwent orbital insertion on February 9. The United Arab Emirates beat China in the race for Mars, albeit for one day.
The United Arab Emirates mission will study the Martian atmosphere and try to address the billion dollar question of how and why Mars lost its atmosphere. The loss of the atmosphere resulted in the loss of surface water and possibly the environment conducive to life.
The Chinese experiment
The Chinese National Space Agency arrived on Mars with the 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 up to 14 Earth days); This is a remarkable feat of engineering, as temperatures can drop to –170 degrees C. The Chang’e 5 mission was able to successfully bring rock samples to Earth in December 2020.
Tianwen-1, the first mission to Mars from China, successfully underwent orbital insertion on February 10. Tianwen-1 carries an orbiter, a lander, and a rover. China’s approach to landing a rover 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 has a suite of instruments to address a variety of scientific questions. Interestingly, it has a ground-penetrating radar instrument to search for water beneath the Martian surface. The rover is scheduled to land at Utopia Planitia, a site with possible ancient groundwater reservoirs.
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This week, perseverance
The most sophisticated mission from an engineering point of view, NASA’s Perseverance Rover, is en route to Mars and is scheduled to land Thursday in Jezero crater, which was likely filled with water in the past. Landing is scheduled for approximately 3.55pm EST (2.25am Friday Indian time).
Perseverance is NASA’s fourth-generation Mars Rover, beginning with Sojourner from the Mars Pathfinder Mission in 1997, followed by Spirit and Opportunity from the Mars Exploration Rover Mission in 2004, and Curiosity from the Mars Science Laboratory in 2012.
The goal is to search for biological signatures in the dry lake bed in Jezero crater. The idea is that early life on Mars may have resembled life that inhabited the oceans on Earth, such as stromatolites. If this were the case, Perseverance would find fossils or some bio-signatures (evidence of life) in chemical measurements or morphological observations.
Additionally, Perseverance will produce oxygen on the Martian surface for the first time, using atmospheric CO2 from the Martian atmosphere. Perseverance will cache rock samples that will be returned to Earth by a subsequent European Space Agency / NASA mission.
The Perseverance rover uses its drill to collect a rock sample on Mars in this undated artistic concept illustration brochure. (NASA / JPL-Caltech / Handout via Reuters)
Musk’s Spaceship Enterprise
The most spectacular preparation to revolutionize the exploration of Mars is happening far from the center of attention, in a quiet coastal city in East Texas. This is the only effort of the mix that is not financially backed by government money. SpaceX, a private US-based company promoted by Elon Musk and backed by select investors, has a long-term goal of starting a commercial service to transport passengers to Mars. Boca Chica, a name apparently no one had heard a few years ago, is now the development site for Starship, possibly representing the best opportunity to land humans on Mars.
A human mission to Mars has been the holy grail of space exploration. Since Neil Armstrong landed on the Moon 50 years ago, man has not been able to proceed to the next logical destination: Mars. The main reason is the enormous cost of a human mission to Mars. Compared to the Moon, which is only three days away, Mars is seven months away. Carrying humans, in engineering terms, translates into maintaining a temperature-controlled pressurized module. It also involves carrying the necessary supplies for the astronauts, including water and oxygen, for a journey of approximately 18 months.
Furthermore, human missions, unlike robotic spacecraft missions, need to return to Earth, which in engineering terms translates into transporting an enormous amount of fuel from Earth, in order to launch from Mars for the journey of he came back. The engineering complexity and higher mass requirement of a human mission to Mars, compared to the Moon, raises costs to between $ 250 billion and $ 1 trillion. Starship promises to reduce mission costs by> 95% up to 99% by using multiple innovations such as refueling the orbiting spacecraft and manufacturing rocket fuel on Mars using materials found on Mars (and therefore , fuel for the return trip would not need to be transported from Earth).
A decade of missions to Mars
As the decade begins, several missions are in the works: notably, the ESA ExoMars rover mission to return rock samples from Mars, ISRO’s plans for Mangalyaan-2, and the Chinese Space Agency’s plans to Tianwen-2 that will return rock samples. From Mars.
Additionally, there will likely be multiple flights of the SpaceX spacecraft, first with cargo and finally with astronauts. In human history, 2020 will be remembered for the Covid-19 pandemic, but the 2020s may well be the decade of an onslaught of spacecraft missions to Mars, ending with the first human steps on Martian soil.
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