The Red Planet will soon be under pressure. Three separate missions to Mars launched by the United States, China and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will all reach their destination this month after flying in just 11 days in a row in 2020.
The unmanned missions promise to provide new insights for scientists on earth aimed at unraveling the mysteries of the solar system and searching Mars for signs of alien life, as well as improving our collective understanding of the cosmos.
But the Mars enterprises are also the latest beacon in the new geopolitical space race, experts say, as the world’s most powerful countries once again compete with each other for extraterrestrial domination.
“Competition in space is on the rise,” Christopher Impey, a professor of astronomy and associate dean of the College of Science at the University of Arizona, told Al Jazeera. “Three missions arriving at Mars within one month are unprecedented.”
“Together, they will contribute greatly to our knowledge of the Red Planet,” Impey added.
Each of the businesses has ‘different objectives and capabilities’, Impey said. The US and Chinese missions, set against the backdrop of increasing geopolitical rivalry between the two countries, include plans to land reconnaissance robbers on Mars, while the United Arab Emirates is focused on taking it from above via an orbit to measure.
The United Arab Emirates ‘mission will be the first in Mars’ orbit on Tuesday, ushering in a new era of space exploration for the Gulf nation.
The UAE’s large space ‘hopes’
Al-Amal, the Arabic word for “hope”, is the sin of the UAE’s space agency.
Al Amal will spend 687 days, a period equivalent to a year on Mars, gathering information about the Martian atmosphere and exploring the weather patterns of the planet during its four seasons.
In doing so, it could shed light on the mystery of Mars’ transformation from a hot, wet world – one with an atmosphere thick enough to carry liquid water to its surface, and possibly support lives – to the cold and arid planet what it is. today.
Matthew Siegler, a researcher at the U.S. Nonprofit Planetary Science Institute, said the findings of the study could help determine when conditions exist on Mars.
“The atmosphere of Mars is currently too thin for liquid water to be stable on the surface,” Siegler told Al Jazeera. “By accurately measuring the atmosphere, we can better model how long the atmosphere may have been suitable for liquid water on the surface, and therefore possibly lifelong.”
In addition to improving our understanding of Mars’ past, the research could also help scientists plan for future missions and increase their understanding of whether the fourth planet from the sun has the potential to receive visitors – or in the longer term. , settlers, the head of the UAE’s Mars mission, Omran Sharaf, told National Geographic.
The UAE’s investigation will gather information on the atmosphere of Mars and examine the weather patterns of the planet through all four of its seasons. [File: Jon Gambrell/AP Photo]
But the UAE mission also definitely has earthly pursuits.
Wendy Whitman Cobb, an associate professor of Strategy and Security Studies at the U.S. Air Force’s School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, told Al Jazeera the company has an underlying motivation “to drive domestic interest in space exploration.”
“The UAE is essentially using this mission to stimulate a homemade space program,” she said, noting that space exploration is still a way for countries to not only demonstrate their technical capabilities, but also compete for global prestige. ‘.
‘Although [the UAE] It’s designed and paid for this mission, it’s been built in the US and launched in Japan, so they need to develop the talent domestically to start doing these kinds of things on a more regular basis, “Whitman Cobb added.
A ‘Projection of Chinese Power’
The Chinese National Space Administration has been closely monitoring the objectives of its inaugural mission to Mars, called Tianwen-1, or “Questions to Heaven.”
What is known is that the probe is expected to take place on February 10 around the orbital insertion, eight days before the vessel led by the US space agency NASA arrives with its Perseverance trailer on tow at the Red Planet.
Although the Chinese probe will defeat NASAs when they arrive at Mars, the landing component is not scheduled to touch the planet’s surface first. Instead, the plan is to keep it in orbit for two or three months, coupled with the cruise ship that tended it through outer space before finally being touched.
China’s lander is expected to make its dangerous descent to Utopia Planitia – Mars’ largest impact crater – in May, after which it will release a six-wheeled solar robot.
The rover, which weighs about 240 kg, will be scouring the surface of the Red Planet for the next three months, examining its geology and searching for bags of water below the surface, which may contain signs of life.
Meanwhile, the cruise ship taking the rover to Mars will remain in orbit and study the planet’s atmosphere using a series of remote sensing tools.
The orbit, which will also combine with the rover for fast data relay, is designed to operate 687 days, reflecting the Mars calendar and the length of the UAE’s probe.
The Chinese National Space Administration has been closely monitoring the objectives of its inaugural mission to Mars, called Tianwen-1, or ‘Questions to Heaven’. [File: Zhang Gaoxiang/AP Photo]
If all goes according to plan, the mission will make China the second country – after the US – to successfully land a spacecraft on Mars and conduct a long-term research mission on the planet’s surface.
“The Chinese mission further demonstrates not only that they are serious about space, but that they are just as capable as the US,” Whitman Cobb said, noting that both countries’ expeditions had a ‘political undertone’.
“While competition may not be the main driver of these missions, it is safe to say that it is part of the calculation,” she added.
Impey, of the University of Arizona, offered a more direct assessment.
“It’s a new space race,” he said. “The competition between China and the United States is a successor to the Soviet-American rivalry from the early space age.”
“China is very ambitious, with plans for a lunar base and eventually a Mars base, and their own space station,” Impey added. “They spend heavily, and success in space is directly related to national pride and the projection of Chinese power.”
Perseverance promises a tremendous ‘scientific payoff’
China may be hot on its heels, but the US is still the forerunner in exploring our solar system.
Todd Harrison is the director of the Aerospace Security Project and a senior fellow of the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.
Harrison told Al Jazeera that the US had maintained a significant lead in space exploration and space technology, but “China and other countries are working diligently to catch up.”
The US has landed on Mars eight times successfully since its first venture in 1976 and is still the only country to place astronauts on the moon during the 1969 to 1972 Apollo missions.
NASA’s six-wheel perseverance rover will hit near the equatorial Jezero crater on February 18. Weighing 1,255 kg (2260 pounds), the nuclear-powered endurance and car size are the most sophisticated explorer ever sent to another planet, and will spend at least two Earths on Mars collecting information and , extremely important, samples from rocks and soil.
Provided that the NASA investigation safely navigates a disturbing descent to the surface, known by engineers as the ‘seven minutes of scare’ – a reference to the time it takes to take a vessel from the top from Mars’ atmosphere – can prove the agency’s mission to be the most important so far in terms of humanity’s understanding of Mars.
“Perseverance is the first step in a multimission effort to return samples from Mars to Earth,” Casey Dreier, chief attorney and senior space policy adviser at The Planetary Society, a non-governmental organization in the United States, told Al Jazeera.
“It has been a goal of the Mars science community for about 50 years, and probably the most ambitious robot project ever attempted,” he added. “The scientific payoff can be huge.”
Mars has historically been hostile to spacecraft, with about half of all missions to the planet failing. [File: Joe Skipper/Reuters]
Siegler added that NASA’s attempt to retrieve billions of years old Mars material and send it back to Earth for analysis is ‘the best way to test past life on the planet’.
“The rover will land to collect samples in an area where scientists believe liquid water was present in the history of Mars for some time when life could have existed,” he explained. ‘It also goes to an incredibly interesting water feature – a delta where a river used to flow into a lake, which is one of the most unique geological features we’ve ever explored on Mars, and a major target to looking for signs of past lives. . ”
Armed with a wealth of scientific tools and equipment, including a detachable miniature helicopter, Perseverance will also help prepare for possible future human missions to Mars, according to the US space agency NASA.
The mission is apparently a precursor to many more US activities that NASA is planning on the planet in the coming years and decades.
Whitman Cobb says more broadly, it symbolizes the country’s effort to retain its current “advantage” in outer space.
‘Hope for a better tomorrow’
At the point of the spate of this month’s reconnaissance activity, there is clear concern among experts about the possible militarization of space, especially as far as US and China rivalry is concerned.
These three missions may shed light on the mystery of Mars’ transformation from a hot, wet world – one with an atmosphere thick enough to support liquid water on its surface, and possibly capable of supporting life – in the cold and arid planet it is today. [File: Hubble Telescope Image via Reuters]
But there is also fragile hope that these efforts outside the world can give the two nations a chance to work together.
“Cooperation is a political choice,” Harrison said. ‘As long as we [the US and China] have shared exploration goals, which we clearly do, then we could find a way to work with each other, despite our differences of opinion in other areas. ”
“National pride certainly plays a role in high-space space missions like this, but I think the ultimate driver is a quest to explore our solar system and learn more,” he added.
Impey collectively promises these aliens to Mars through the US, China and the UAE to take a “big step forward” in our ability as humans to perform complex missions in space, as well as a sign that one day we will be the whole master solar system and live off the earth ”.
At a time when life on earth remains trapped in the chaos and tragedy of the coronavirus pandemic, Siegler is looking at science to expand the margins of what we know and what we think is possible.
“Exploration always brings hope – the hope for a better tomorrow,” he said. “We can all continue to do great things, even if it’s a global challenge.”