On February 9 the United Arab Emirates’ Hope spacecraft is expected to orbit Mars after a six-month journey of 300 million miles from Earth. This will be the start of a historic month for the Red Planet, which will see three separate national missions orbit or hit the surface. Two of the countries behind these missions, the UAE and China, are visiting Mars for the first time; they become the fifth and sixth country to achieve the achievement, respectively. The third mission, launched by NASA, is expected to become the 15th mission of the United States to successfully orbit Mars or land.
The UAE is the only country that will not attempt a soft landing during the Mars invasion in February. Instead, the Hope orbit will study the Martian atmosphere more than 12,000 miles above the surface. Planetary scientists hope that the UAE’s robo-meteorologist will fill in gaps in our understanding of the March climate and help validate the environmental data captured by robbers and landers on the ground. The United Arab Space Agency has for the first time assisted the country’s in-depth reconnaissance with an international team of researchers at the University of Colorado, Boulder, to plan the mission and build the spacecraft.
“There really is no point in exploring space without adding knowledge, and we have never led a scientific mission,” said Sarah Bint Yousef Al Amiri, Minister of State for Advanced Science and Science. the Emirates Mars mission, said. a press conference last week. “It was not an easy journey, but it was a pleasure to rethink how you develop a planetary reconnaissance mission.”
The Hope spacecraft will be the first new orbit around Mars since the European Space Agency’s ExoMars spacecraft arrived in 2016, but it will not be the newcomer for long. Less than a day later, the Tianwen-1 mission in China, which is a lander, a rover and an orbit, is expected to be one. The Chinese space agency was quiet about its plans to visit the Red Planet, but the spacecraft is expected to make a landing shortly after reaching an orbit.
Unlike NASA’s car size Mars Rovers Curiosity and Opportunity, the Chinese Tianwen-1 Rover is small enough to hide in the stationary lander that will carry it to the surface. Once touched safely, the six-wheeler will detach itself from the lander and explore its landing site, Utopia Planitia, the largest impact crater on the planet, for the next three months. The rover and lander will both send data from the surface to the Tianwen-1 orbit, which will send it back to Earth. Although the Chinese National Space Administration did not provide much detail about the exact scientific objectives of its mission, an article about it was published last year in Natural Astronomy says the agency’s goal is to conduct ” a global and comprehensive survey of the entire planet. ”
On February 18, a little over a week after the arrival of this robotic delegation, NASA’s Perseverance Rover is expected to hit. This will involve a frightening descent to the surface, during which the car will have to reduce its speed for more than 10,000 miles per hour to just a few feet per second for 15 minutes. The descent will end with some aerial acrobatics, during which a rocket-propelled aerial crane gently lowers the rover to the surface as it floats a few dozen feet above the ground.
“Do not let anyone tell you otherwise – it is difficult to land on Mars,” John McNamee, project manager of the Perseverance Mission at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a statement. ‘But the women and men in this team are the best in the world at what they do. When our spacecraft hits the top of the Martian atmosphere at about three and a half miles per second, we are ready. ”