Four missions to Mars were planned to launch this summer, including three rovers, from multiple space agencies.
Two, including China’s Tianwen-1 (which carries a rover) and the UAE’s Hope Probe probe, launched last week, are now headed for Mars. NASA’s Perseverance rover is next, scheduled to launch on July 30. And Europe’s first planetary rover will have to wait a little longer to begin its journey to Mars.
Additional testing will ensure that the components of the spacecraft are complete and ready. The rover was scheduled to launch in July 2020. Now, joint agency project teams await a new launch window between August and October 2022.
While the pandemic has posed challenges and caused delays on other missions, teams working on missions scheduled to land on Mars were motivated to have everything ready for the planned launch date.
For the Perseverance rover teams, which includes more than 1,000 people, the pandemic struck at a crucial moment.
“For a mission like this to be successful, it takes a lot of perseverance and a lot of hard work and brilliance at best,” said Michael Watkins, director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, during a conversation hosted by the Foundation. Space last week. “And I don’t think any of us anticipated this Covid pandemic just during the busiest time of the mission. ”
This is when mission teams were working three different shifts a day, 24/7, to finish the final assembly, run the final tests on the clean flight hardware, and make sure the mission was ready, Watkins said.
Although the perseverance teams had to switch to telecommuting and complete missionary work from home, there were still team members who had to work directly with the hardware. They wore masks and practiced social distancing.
“I really can’t say enough about how amazing this team was,” said Watkins. “They really got down to business and completed this on time and we are ready to go. NASA really came together as a family and it has really been a surprisingly smooth experience given all the problems with Covid.”
When the planets align
Earth is the third closest planet to the sun and Mars is the fourth, which influences the orbits of the planets around the sun, as well as the number of days that equals one year on each planet.
For example, Earth moves at a fairly rapid rate of 67,000 miles per hour as it orbits the sun, creating our 365-day orbit. But Mars is further from the sun, making it slower and longer. A year on Mars is about 687 Earth days.
Planets also don’t move in perfect circular paths around the sun. Instead, they have elliptical, or more oval, orbits. And the orbit of Mars is carried by the gigantic gas giant Jupiter, which can also change the shape of the orbit.
Mars and Earth are also slightly tilted in their orbits.
But every 26 months, Mars and Earth end up in a good alignment on the same side of the sun and are closer together than usual. Launches to Mars are targeted right now because any spacecraft leaving Earth will experience a shorter trip to Mars, meaning less resources, such as fuel, are also needed.
Other factors, such as the launch vehicle’s lifting capacity, the spacecraft’s mass, and the landing time, also help determine the launch window.
This biennial alignment offers a small window of opportunity. For Perseverance, the launch window is between July 30 and August 15.
Although NASA has successfully landed on Mars several times, including four rovers, it is a challenge that requires communication during landing. That’s for teams to understand what happens during descent and landing.
Programming a specific launch window ensures that the spacecraft will land when NASA orbiters on Mars pass over the landing site, providing radio transmissions from the spacecraft.
NASA will attempt the first Perseverance launch at 7:50 am ET on July 30, with launch opportunities every five minutes over a two-hour period.
If the rover launches during the two-week window between July 30 and August 15, it will land on Mars on February 18, 2021. The Chinese and UAE missions to Mars will also land on Mars in February 2021.
While Mars will make its closest approach to Earth in October, just 38.6 million miles from Earth, the longest distance from Earth to Mars can reach up to 249 million miles, according to NASA.
If the rover does not start within the two-week period, it will be placed in storage and teams will have to wait two years for another launch opportunity.
Storage of the spacecraft and other delay factors would cost NASA $ 500 million and impact the long-term goals of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, according to NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine.
“I hope that people see this mission and are inspired that we can fight and achieve even in the midst of difficult times,” he said during a press conference in June.
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