PROBE TO REVEAL WHY RIVERS DRIED UP ON RED PLANET
▶ Nasa’s Dr Jim Rice said the Hope orbiter, which will be launched in July, will have a unique view of Mars
The UAE’s Hope spacecraft could provide breakthrough data on why the ancient river systems on Mars dried up, a leading Nasa scientist said.
Dr Jim Rice said the highaltitude positioning of the Emirates Mars Mission probe could help solve many of the Red Planet’s mysteries.
Currently, there are six relatively low-orbit spacecraft from Europe, India and US missions circling Mars.
But when Hope launches in July, it will go into an elliptical orbit between 22,000 kilometres and 44,000km from the planet’s surface.
Scientists hope the additional height will allow the probe to retrieve critical data on Mars’ temperature and other weather conditions.
“The others, such as the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the European Trace Gas Orbiter, the Nasa Maven mission and any previous ones dating back to the 1970s, were low-orbit missions,” said Dr Rice, geology team leader of the Mars Exploration Rover project at Nasa.
“They were primarily trying to get high-resolution images of the surface. For weather satellites, it’s best to be placed much higher up, which is the goal for the Hope mission.”
The Hope probe is expected to be launched in mid-July from Japan’s Tanegashima Space Centre, on a small island in the far south of the country.
Once in orbit, it will circle Mars every 55 hours, far longer than existing crafts’ orbits.
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter takes 112 minutes to complete the loop, the Trace Gas Orbiter takes 120 minutes and the Maven takes more than four hours. This is because each is much closer to the surface of the Red Planet.
Dr Rice last week said scientists were hoping new, in-depth atmospheric data might shed light on what led to Mars’s desolate state.
Experts believe liquid water once existed on its surface, as suggested by the detection of specific minerals and prominent geological features.
“Hope will get to see the entire planet and can observe and study the whole atmosphere at different times of the day,” Dr Rice told The National.
“Geology has always been the main thrust of all previous missions, but Mars hasn’t had many missions with weather as a focus. The Hope mission offers that.
“We see all of the dried river beds; we know there were lakes on Mars, maybe even oceans.
“Those things can’t exist today because the atmospheric pressure is too small. The atmosphere must have been thicker [in the past] to allow liquid water to be present on the surface.
“Understanding the climate of Mars is one of the big questions, and when and what caused that change.
“Any information we can get can help us fill in the gaps in our knowledge base.”
When Hope reaches its orbit, three on-board instruments – an infrared and ultraviolet spectrometer, and a camera – will study the planet.
The equipment will focus on how major dust storms are leading to hydrogen gas being leaked into higher levels of the atmosphere.
It is this movement of hydrogen that experts believe could be contributing to the thinning of Mars’ atmosphere.
Before Hope can begin collecting data, however, scientists first have to place the probe in its correct orbit.
Dr Rice said that task was “very difficult”, with about 45 per cent of Mars missions – whether they involve landing craft or orbiters – ending in failure.
Today, India is the only country that has successfully placed a probe in orbit around the planet on its first attempt.
“It will be a major accomplishment if the mission is successful,” Dr Rice said. “Even flying by the orbit has been difficult.
“Mars is a hard place and it is a graveyard of the solar system. Most of the failures there are by the Russians, and the Americans have had some.”