The month of the robot invasion of Mars is at hand. Seven months ago, the United States, China and the United Arab Emirates launched missions on a journey of 480 million kilometers (300 million kilometers) to Mars.
Last week, two of the three missions quietly arrived there and placed themselves in the Mars orbit. However, the final spacecraft to arrive, NASA’s Mars 2020 mission, will not gently enter the Martian atmosphere. On Thursday 18 February, NASA’s latest Mars mission, destined to uncover evidence of ancient microbial life on the distant planet, will unveil a spectacular display of extremely intricate engineering.
To come to Mars
Launch to the Red Planet is a strategic maneuver that can only be completed once every two years. This is due to the varying velocity and elliptical shape of the planets’ orbits around the sun. The point at which Earth and Mars are close enough to reduce travel time, called opposition, occurs only once every two years.
The most recent opposition took place in July 2020. Four international Mars missions were intended to leave Earth this summer, but due to the further certification of parachutes, the European Space Agency’s ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover would have to wait for the launch event during the next planet. opposition would take place in 2022. This left three robot invaders from the United States, the United Arab Emirates and China to escape from Earth’s orbit and become interplanetary superstars.
Hope Comes to Mars
The first interplanetary mission of the United Arab Emirates, a spacecraft called Al-Amal, or the Hope Probe, was developed in collaboration between the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder, Arizona. State University, and the Space Sciences Lab at the University of California, Berkeley. It was launched on July 19, 2020 from Tanegashima Space Center in Japan aboard an H2A202 rocket. On Tuesday, February 9, the Hope Probe was the first of three missions to complete the journey to Mars and successfully place itself in orbit.
The Hope Probe arrived at about 12,000 km / h (12,000 km / h) on an orbit near Mars, which was too fast to introduce a safe maneuver from the Mars orbitals. To slow down to the approximate 11,000 km / h (18,000 km / h) that had to be captured by the orbit of Mars, the spacecraft had to fire its main propellers autonomously and take a Mars Orbit insertion combustion that lasted 27 minutes. To compensate in the event of a bow screw, there was a backup safety protocol that would double the burn. After 27 grueling minutes, the Mohammad Bin Rashid Space Center in Dubai reported that the maneuver had been successfully completed and that the Hope Probe had arrived at its final destination.
Unlike the US and Chinese missions to Mars, which will land on the surface, the United Arab Emirates’ sin of hope will remain in orbit for the duration of its mission – about two Mars years. The spacecraft is equipped with a suite of three instruments, two spectrometers – one infrared and one ultraviolet – to study the atmosphere of Mars, and one footage to capture high-resolution images to study the surface from afar.
The Chinese Tianwen-1 Rover will hang around in a lane before landing in May
The same kind of Mars Orbit Insertion Maneuver was completed by China’s first interplanetary mission, the Tianwen – 1 spacecraft. Tianwen-1, launched on 23 July 2020, arrived on Mars just one day after the Hope Probe on Wednesday 10 February.
The Tianwen-1 spacecraft had to complete an exciting 11-minute ‘brake-‘ burn to slow it down, which took it behind the planet as it was captured by the gravity of Mars and went into orbit.
Like NASA’s Perseverance, the Tianwen – 1 mission contains a rover that will eventually land on the surface of Mars. However, the process of bringing the rover to the surface differs from NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance mission.
The Tianwen-1 spacecraft consists of two components, an orbit and a rover. It is currently planned that the orbit will spend some time in Mars orbit for a period of comprehensive observation before attempting to land in May. Ideally, the spacecraft then becomes known in a region as Utopia Planitia.
Once the rover is safe to the surface, the mission investigation period will begin. The Rover has a range of scientific tools that will be used to investigate the composition of the Martian surface, looking for the potential distribution of water and ice. Similar to China’s Yutu 2 rover exploring the Moon, the Tianwen 1 rover also carries a panoramic camera to capture the planet.
Perseverance and ingenuity like no other
The last of the three Mars missions – NASA’s Mars 2020 mission launched on July 30, 2020 from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket. As for the arrival of Mars, the best is definitely for last saved. Following the success of the other two missions from China and the United Arab Emirates, the stage for Perseverance is ready to make its dramatic entry.
NASA’s Mars 2020 mission is by far the most ambitious mission launched to Mars during the planetary transfer window in 2020. NASA is trying not one country, but two spacecraft on the surface of Mars. The $ 2.4 billion Mars 2020 mission consists of the Perseverance Rover – powered by the heat produced by radioactive decay of Plutonium – and a first rotating helicopter called Ingenuity. It will be presented in a dramatic way on Thursday 18 February.
Instead of performing a brake maneuver to slow down and enter orbit Mars, the Perseverance spacecraft will autonomously perform the descent, descent and landing (EDL) procedure – it actually goes on for thousands of kilometers per hour down to slowly descend under a parachute canopy until gently. land within minutes.
The spacecraft – housed in a protective air cover with its robust heat shield to the planet’s surface – will burst into Mars’ atmosphere moving at almost 20,000 km / h. Once through, Pesevereance will drop its heat shield and automatically begin scanning the Martain site to determine its relative location and make adjustments to find an optimal landing site. Then a powered downhill module will transport the rover the rest of the way, slowing down to less than 3 km / h. Eventually, the descent module will move a complex armor system and drop the perseverance – and the hiding place, the Ingenuity helicopter – to the Martian surface for touch.
After seven months of interplanetary travel, it all comes down to the last seven minutes – the duration of the EDL process is expected to last. All astronauts on earth can do is wait and wait for the final telemetry reading, indicating that perseverance has become successful. Therefore, this process has been nicknamed ‘seven minutes of horror’.
Launches around 11:15 PST (19:15 UTC) on Thursday, February 18 and NASA provides live coverage of Perseverance’s landing attempt. The agency will include coverage on NASA TV and its website, as well as a number of other platforms, including YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitch, Daily Motion, Theta.TV and NASA App.