Spacecraft set to blast off to Mars

IF you wait until close to midnight tonight and face to the east, low in the sky you will see a fairly bright reddish-orange point of light. It’s one of three planets currently visible in the evenings, and you may already have guessed which one – it is the Red Planet, Mars.

Over the next few weeks, there will be three new spacecraft heading towards Mars, and they will arrive at their destination in early 2021.

The first to launch is expected to be the first interplanetary mission of the United Arab Emirates, called Hope, built as a joint project between the UAE and the US.

At the time of writing, the launch of Hope is planned for early Wednesday morning, Tasmanian time.

Hope will be placed into orbit around Mars to study various aspects of the Martian weather and climate, and try to provide some clues as to why the Martian climate has changed so much over Mars’ history.

A few years ago I had the pleasure of visiting two of the planetariums in the UAE and learning of the great interest in astronomy and space research there. Now, the UAE has a Space Agency, overseeing the Hope mission and other projects.

Islamic astronomy has played an important role in the development of the subject, especially several centuries ago before the significant developments in Europe in the lead-up to the invention of the telescope.

Perhaps the most well publicised of the upcoming Mars missions is NASA’s Mars 2020 Rover, named Perseverance. Its two-week-long launch ‘window’ begins on July 30.

Perseverance is going to be a quite significant mission.

One of its tasks will be to collect samples of Martian surface material and assemble the collection ready for a future mission that will bring it back to Earth.

It’s very ambitious, and it’s clear that transport of the samples will be quite a challenge.

Another task for Perseverance is to conduct an experiment to extract oxygen from the Martian atmosphere, which is composed mainly of carbon dioxide. Making this process work will be very important for the future human habitation of Mars.

The part of the NASA project that may capture most public interest will be the first flight on Mars! It will be performed by a little helicopter called Ingenuity that, instead of carrying scientific experiments, will be a test of the technology. Fortunately, it will carry two cameras, which will return images of the view looking down onto the Martian surface at close range.

Flying a helicopter on Mars is quite different to doing it on Earth, because the Martian atmosphere is very thin.

This means that obtaining enough lift is a real challenge.

Its extremely light rotor blades will need to spin at around 2500 revolutions per minute during each of its short 90-second flights.

To allow Ingenuity to fly, its mass has been kept down to only 1.8kg, although there is also a small benefit offered by the lower Martian gravity – the gravitational acceleration at the surface of Mars is only about one-third that at Earth’s surface.

Future helicopters on Mars will be used for detailed mapping, and to help identify suitable places for rovers to explore.

Yet another spacecraft will head to Mars soon, in about the same launch window as that for Perseverance.

It will be an orbiter and lander being sent to the Red Planet by China, called Tianwen-1.

Although it will arrive at Mars around the same time as the UAE and US craft, it is thought that the rover may not be sent to the surface immediately, so that the orbiter can image the possible landing sites.

There would have been a fourth spacecraft heading for Mars soon, but its launch has been delayed until 2022. This one was the ExoMars 2020 rover, a joint mission by the European Space Agency and Russia. Technical problems, and delays caused by COVID-19, resulted in the decision to delay.

The reason for the wait of more than two years is that it is necessary for Earth and Mars to be in particular parts of their orbits so that the cruise to Mars will be possible. This is why the upcoming missions will all be launched over the period of just a few weeks, taking advantage of this ‘natural’ launch window.

So even though only three of the four planned missions are about to be launched, it will be quite a special time as they leave Earth one by one and all arrive at Mars early next year.

It’s a great thought as you gaze at Mars tonight!

Martin George is Manager of the Launceston Planetarium (QVMAG)