The American company Rocket Lab decided to launch a new scientific mission to find out the truth about how the planet Mars was removed from its atmosphere, with funding from the US space agency NASA.
The website said, mashable“, scientists have concluded that Mars once had a thicker atmosphere, and may have been able to support life systems, but the planet’s climate changed dramatically over billions of years of years, from an Earth-like world that was drowned in lakes and rivers to a barren desert, which prompted the Question “Where did the feeling go?”.
The site said that out of all the new space projects, the name “Rocket lab“Surprisingly, given the company’s bad reputation, as well as the widespread obsession of its rival, SpaceX, and its founder, Elon Musk, with reaching Mars.
The company’s CEO, Peter Beck, said in statements on the website: “I always joke that we are the only space company that is not led by a billionaire right now the worst for our public relations department and communication. I’m probably one of the richest people on the planet.” “A very boring type of executive. I don’t post controversial stuff and I don’t do crazy stuff. build rockets.”
The company has built two spacecraft for the upcoming Mars mission, Escapade, which is scheduled to launch by October 13.
If the mission is successful, it may set an example of how NASA and the commercial space industry can approach cheaper interplanetary missions in the future.
Escapade had a budget of $80 million, under the space agency’s Small Innovative Planetary Exploration (Simplex) missions program.
The company completed the construction of the two vehicles in just 3.5 years for $57 million, a relatively small price compared to the billions that the organization usually spends on a complex mission beyond Earth’s orbit. .
One of the Escapade probes, called “Blue” and the other “Gold” in honor of UC Berkeley’s colors, are each the size of a washer and dryer and were recently sent to Cape Canaveral, Florida, where it is expected to be integrated. on Blue Sky’s New Glenn rocket, “Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket is not powerful enough to carry the payload. year, Beck said.
Expected performance
The Escapade spacecraft mission will continue for about 11 months before reaching Mars. Before starting its primary science mission in April 2026.
Another spacecraft studied how the solar wind interacts with the Martian atmosphere, but they were unable to complete their mission, as a single spacecraft alone cannot measure the true effects of solar storms.
In addition to the two spacecraft instruments, the probes are expected to be equipped with cameras to capture the first global view of the Martian aurora. The United Arab Emirates’ Hope probe took pictures in ultraviolet light, and NASA’s Perseverance rover saw the first aurora from. the surface of the planet in March .., but the new scientific mission may succeed in capturing the first overview of the aurora in visible light.
Scientists confirm that this study is extremely important. In order for astronauts to land on Mars and explore it one day, they will need navigation and communication systems that pass signals through the planet’s upper atmosphere. The more accurate the scientists’ models of the ionosphere of Mars, the amount of limited particles around the planet, the better these methods will work.
