The red planet is about to agglomerate a bit. Three separate missions to Mars launched by the United States, China and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will arrive at their destination this month after flying in just 11 days apart in 2020.
Unmanned missions promise to give new insights to Earth-bound scientists with the intent of unraveling the mysteries of the solar system and exploring Mars to find signs of extraterrestrial life, as well as improving our collective understanding of the cosmos.
But Mars’ companies are also the latest benchmark in the new geopolitical space race, experts say, as the world’s most powerful nations once again compete with each other to dominate beyond the Earth’s surface.
“Competition in space is heating up,” Christopher Impey, an astronomy professor and associate dean at the University of Arizona-based College of Science in the United States, told Al Jazeera. “Three missions arriving on Mars in a month are unprecedented.”
“Collectively, they will add a lot to our knowledge of the red planet,” Impey added.
Each of the companies has “different goals and capabilities,” Impey said. U.S. and Chinese missions, which come in the context of an intensifying geopolitical rivalry between the two nations, include plans to land exploratory rovers on Mars, while the United Arab Emirates is focused on taking control of them from from above by means of an orbiter.
The UAE mission will be the first to reach Mars orbit on Tuesday, ushering in a new era of space exploration for the Gulf nation.
The great “hope” of the UAE
Named Al Amal, the Arabic word meaning “hope,” the UAE Space Agency spacecraft represents its first foray into space.
Al Amal will spend 687 days, a period equivalent to a year on Mars, gathering information about the Martian atmosphere and analyzing the planet’s weather patterns over its four seasons.
In doing so, it can shed light on the mystery of Mars’ transformation from a warm, humid world (with an atmosphere thick enough to withstand liquid water to its surface and potentially capable of withstanding life) to cold and barren. planet that is. today.
Matthew Siegler, a research scientist at the non-profit Planetary Institute of Planetary Sciences, said the probe’s findings could help determine when the conditions that lead to life on Mars existed.
“Currently the Martian atmosphere is too thin for liquid water to be stable on the surface,” Siegler told Al Jazeera. “By carefully measuring the atmosphere, we can better model how long ago the atmosphere was suitable for liquid water on the surface and therefore potentially suitable for life.”
In addition to promising to improve our understanding of Mars ’past, the vessel’s research could also guide scientists’ planning for future missions and improve their understanding of whether the sun’s fourth planet has the potential to receive human visitors or , in the long run, said the settlers, the head of Mars’ mission to the UAE, Omran Sharaf, at National Geographic.
The UAE probe will collect information on the Martian atmosphere and examine the planet’s weather patterns during the four seasons [File: Jon Gambrell/AP Photo]
But the UAE mission also has strong ground aspirations.
Wendy Whitman Cobb, an associate professor of strategy and security studies at the U.S. Air Force School of Air and Space Studies, told Al Jazeera that the company had an underlying motivation “to drive the ‘national interest in space exploration’.
“The UAE is using this mission basically to stimulate a space program of its own production,” he said, noting that space exploration “remains a means by which countries not only demonstrate their technical capabilities, but compete. for world prestige “.
“However [the UAE] designed and paid for by this mission, it was built in the United States and launched in Japan, so they need to develop the talent nationwide to start doing that kind of thing on a more regular basis, ”Whitman Cobb added.
A “projection of Chinese power”
China’s National Space Administration has kept the goals of its inaugural mission to Mars, called Tianwen-1, or “Questions in the Sky,” closely monitored.
What is known is that its probe is expected to make orbital insertion on February 10, eight days before the spacecraft guided by the US space agency NASA is scheduled to reach the red planet with its rover Perseverance in the trailer.
Although the Chinese spacecraft will surpass NASA’s when it reaches Mars, its lander component is not expected to attempt to touch the planet’s surface first. Instead, the plan is to keep it in orbit for two to three months, attached to the cruiser that has been grazing it through outer space before it can touch.
The Chinese lander is expected to end its dangerous descent to Utopia Planitia, the largest impact crater on Mars, sometime in May, after which it will launch a six-wheeled rover robot powered by solar energy.
The rover, which weighs about 240kg, will spend the next three months scouring the surface of the red planet, examining its geology and looking for bags of water beneath the surface, which may contain signs of life.
Meanwhile, the cruise ship carrying the rover to Mars will remain in orbit, studying the planet’s atmosphere using a set of remote sensing instruments.
The orbiter, which will also be combined with the rover for high-speed data retransmission, is designed to operate for 687 days, reflecting the Martian calendar and the length of the UAE probe.
China’s National Space Administration has kept the goals of its inaugural mission to Mars, called Tianwen-1, or “Questions in the Sky,” closely monitored. [File: Zhang Gaoxiang/AP Photo]
If all goes well, the mission will make China the second country, along with the United States, to successfully land a spacecraft on Mars and conduct a long-term research mission to the planet’s surface.
“The Chinese mission further demonstrates not only that they are serious about space, but that they are as capable as the United States,” said Whitman Cobb, who noted that expeditions from both countries have a “political tone”.
“While competition may not be the main driver of these missions, it is safe to say that it is part of the calculation,” he added.
Impey, of the University of Arizona, offered a more direct assessment.
“It’s a new space race,” he said. “The China-US rivalry is a successor to the Soviet-American rivalry since the first space age.”
“China is very ambitious, it has plans for a lunar base and finally a Mars base, and its own space station,” Impey added. “They are spending a lot, and success in space is directly linked to national pride and the projection of Chinese power.”
Perseverance promises “immense” scientific reward
China may be hot, but the United States is still the first to explore our solar system.
Todd Harrison is the director of the Aerospace Security Project and a senior member of the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank based in Washington, DC.
Harrison told Al Jazeera that the United States has maintained “a substantial advantage in space exploration and space technology,” but “China and other nations are working diligently to catch up.”
The United States has successfully landed on Mars eight times since its first such adventure in 1976 and remains the only country to have put astronauts on the moon during the Apollo missions from 1969 to 1972.
NASA’s six-wheeled Perseverance rover will land on Feb. 18 near the Jezero equatorial crater. Weighing 1,025 kg (2,260 lbs), the nuclear-sized, car-sized Perseverance is the most sophisticated explorer ever sent to another planet and will spend at least two years on Earth on Mars, gathering information and , especially samples of its rocks and soil.
If the NASA spacecraft safely navigates a final descent to the surface, known to engineers as the “seven minutes of terror,” a reference to the time it takes a spacecraft to descend from the top of Mars’ atmosphere , the agency’s mission could prove most fundamental so far in terms of understanding Mars for humanity.
“Perseverance is the first step in a multi-mission attempt to return samples from Mars to Earth,” said Casey Dreier, senior advocate and senior space policy advisor for The Planetary Society, a U.S.-based non-governmental organization. Units.
“This has been a goal of the Mars scientific community for about 50 years, and probably the most ambitious robotic project ever attempted,” he added. “The scientific reward could be immense.”
Mars has historically been hostile to spacecraft, with about half of all missions on the planet failing. [File: Joe Skipper/Reuters]
Siegler added that NASA’s proposal to collect Martian material billions of years ago and transport it to Earth for analysis represents 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 for a time in Mars history, when life could have existed,” he explained. “It also addresses an incredibly interesting water feature: a delta where a river emptied into the lake, which is one of the most unique geological features we’ve explored on Mars, and a prime target for sign hunting. of the past life “.
Armed with a wealth of scientific instruments and apparatus, including a detachable miniature helicopter, Perseverance will also help NASA prepare for future human missions to Mars, according to the U.S. space agency.
The mission appears to be a forerunner of many more American activities that NASA plans on the planet in the coming years and decades.
More broadly, Whitman Cobb said, it symbolizes the country’s effort to maintain its current “advantage” in outer space.
“Hope for a better tomorrow”
At the peak of this month’s Mars exploration activity, there are clear concerns among experts about the potential militarization of space, especially when it comes to the rivalry between the US and China.
These three missions can shed light on the mystery of Mars’ transformation of a warm, humid world, one with an atmosphere thick enough to withstand liquid water on its surface and potentially capable of withstanding life on the cold, barren planet. which is today. [File: Hubble Telescope Image via Reuters]
But there are also fragile hopes that these out-of-this-world efforts can offer the two nations a chance to collaborate.
“Cooperation is a political choice,” Harrison said. “As long as we [the US and China] we have shared exploration goals, which we clearly do, and we should be able to find ways to cooperate with each other, despite our disagreements in other areas. ”
“National pride certainly plays a role in high-profile space missions like these, but I think the ultimate engine is the quest to explore and learn more about our solar system,” he added.
Taken together, Impey said, these stays on Mars by the United States, China and the United Arab Emirates promise to take “a big step forward” in our ability as humans to carry out complex missions in space, as well as “a sign that one day we can dominate the entire solar system and live on Earth.”
At a time when life on Earth remains immersed in the chaos and tragedy of the coronavirus pandemic, seeing science widen both the edges of what we know and what we believe is possible promises to be particularly poignant, Siegler said.
“Exploration always brings hope, hope for a better tomorrow,” he said. “We can all continue to move forward on great things, even in the face of a global challenge.”