Mars’s orbit will become crowded in February as three countries’ space robot probes are set to arrive.
The United Arab Emirates, China, and the United States all have probes that will complete their treks of millions of miles across space this week.
The UAE’s probe, the Hope orbiter, will arrive first on Tuesday. It is designed to study the planet’s weather and to create a complete map of Mars’s atmosphere.
The Hope spaceship, which is the Arab world’s first interplanetary spacecraft, will attempt to orbit Mars and will then spend the next two years studying the planet.
Comparatively, China’s mission, Tianwen-1, which will reach its destination on Wednesday, will conduct a global survey and relay the data back to Earth.
Once Tianwen-1 enters the planet’s orbit, it will study it for several months before sending a 250-kilogram robot rover to the planet’s surface.
“China has already safely landed rovers on the moon, but this will be a far greater achievement and will really show what their space scientists can do today,” astrobiologist Susanne Schwenzer of the Open University said.
If successful, it would be the second country to have a robot vehicle on another planet, after the U.S. The U.S., which will not reach its target for more than a week, will look for signs of habitable conditions for life.
The U.S. used to fit airbags onto its probes, allowing them to bounce to a standstill after being dropped from a parachute, but the new rovers are too complex and heavy. Instead, the Perseverance will rely on a rocket platform called a sky crane, which will be used to lower the rover onto Mars.
“When we do that, we will hopefully get answers to the simple question: Is there, or was there, life on Mars?” added Schwenzer. “It is a crucial issue, for if life did evolve on Mars, independently of life on Earth, that means life evolved twice, separately, in the same solar system and is likely to be common in the cosmos.”
