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United States, China and Emirates warm up engines to travel to Mars

Every two years, Earth and Mars are in the ideal position to launch space missions, a moment that, in the coming weeks, a veteran will take advantage of in these conflicts, the United States, and two countries that venture for the first time to the red planet: China and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The trio should have been a quartet, but the joint mission planned by the European Space Agency (ESA) and Russia will have to wait until 2022, to allow more time for testing.

Advancing the knowledge of Mars and, above all, trying to answer the question of whether life existed are the objectives of these missions to a cold, arid and inhospitable planet, which does not want us to go, says the coordinator of the Unit of Scientific Culture of the Spanish Center for Astrobiology (CSIC-INTA), Juan Ángel Vaquerizo.

But Mars was not always like this. The data that we know indicates that some 3,500 million years ago it was very similar to what Earth was like at that time, at which time life appeared on our planet, so “it is logical to think” that it could also have arisen there.

NASA is already a veteran to go to Mars and the scientific objectives of Mars 2020 are more ambitious, while for the UAE and China these are “pioneering” missions and, most importantly, it is to prove that they can do it, she says.

China already tried to send a probe in 2011, but not independently, since it was included in a Russian mission to the Martian moon of Phobos, which ended in failure.

The first to start engines will be Hope, the UAE orbiting probe, which is scheduled to take off from Japan on July 15 at 0551 local time (20.51 GMT on Tuesday 14).

From its orbit around Mars, it wants to show the first complete image of the planet’s atmosphere, and scientists hope to be able to answer questions about the lack of hydrogen and oxygen, the way dust, ice clouds and steam are distributed.

Starting July 30 – the final date will be specified in the coming days – it will be NASA’s turn with Mars 2020, which will look for signs of ancient microbial life, characterize geology and climate, collect rock and sediment samples so that A future mission – planned in 2026 – sends them to Earth, and will prepare the way for human exploration beyond the Moon.

The big star of this mission will be the Perseverance rover, which will land in the 45-kilometer Jezero crater and north of the Martian equator, where sometime between 3,000 and 4,000 million years ago a river flowed. A place where, according to Vaquerizo, there could possibly be traces of past life.

Among his instruments, the expert highlights Moxie, who will transform CO2 from the atmosphere into oxygen. NASA already has in mind the human exploration of Mars and this apparatus will demonstrate a way in which future explorers could produce oxygen for breathing and propulsion.

Not forgetting the Ingenuity helicopter, a kind of drone with two propellers, which will test whether it can be flown on Mars, where the atmosphere is much more subdued, “making it much more complicated for a flying apparatus to sustain itself”; in fact, their propellers will have to spin a hundred times faster than they would on Earth.

“As it flies, it will be amazing!” Exclaims Vaquerizo, who says that if it is possible to prove that flying technology can be developed on Mars, it would give “the ability to explore the environment in an infinitely greater radius of action than now with a rover. “

The least-known mission is China Tianwen-1, which could launch by July 23, and is comprised of an orbiter, a lander, and a rover.

China is an already mature space agency to undertake this type of company and everything has been played for everything,” since the triplet has never been attempted on a first mission, Vaquerizo points out. If successful, it will be the second country to land a rover on Mars.

It is expected – he adds – that he studies the magnetic and gravitational field of the planet; It will also carry spectrometers to analyze the composition of rocks and soil, and radar to map the surface of Mars up to 100 meters, in search of water and ice.

Making the last preparations to go to Mars during the covid-19 pandemic has been an extra challenge that, in the case of NASA, has required “a creative solution to the problems, teamwork and determination,” it indicates on its website. While the UAE probe had to travel to Japan ahead of schedule.

The coronavirus also complicated the work of ESA and Russia’s Roscosmos, who in March announced the postponement to 2022, in order to carry out pending trials, of their ExoMars mission, which includes the Rosalind Franklin rover, to look for signs of life.

Vaquerizo highlights the need to be “cautious” when deciding on a mission of this type, where there is “so much” money and what is at stake “is so much”, because failure “has no turning back and is an irreparable loss “

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