Mars news

Mars is the latest arena in the US-China rivalry, with both countries launching probes this month

Weather permitting, China's Tianwen-1 is expected to blast off Thursday from Hainan Island in the country's south, though the government has yet to publicly confirm the date. NASA's Perseverance rover is scheduled to launch on July 30. Both probes are expected to reach Mars in February 2021.

Perseverance aims to answer questions about the potential for life on Mars, including seeking signs of habitable conditions in the planet's ancient past and looking for evidence of microbial life. The rover has a drill which can be used to collect core samples from rocks and set them aside to potentially be collected and examined by a later mission.

If successful, Perseverance will be the seventh probe NASA has landed on Mars, and the fourth rover. Curiosity, which landed on the red planet in 2012, is still sending back data about the Martian surface.Tianwen-1, whose name means "Quest for Heavenly Truth," is China's first mission to Mars. The probe will orbit the planet before landing a rover on the surface, with the hope that it can gather important information about the Martian soil, geological structure, environment, atmosphere, and search for signs of water. In a paper last week, the scientific team behind Tianwen-1 said the probe is "going to orbit, land and release a rover all on the very first try, and coordinate observations with an orbiter. No planetary missions have ever been implemented in this way."

By contrast, NASA sent multiple orbiters to Mars before ever attempting a landing. Pulling off the landing is a far more difficult task.

"If successful, it would signify a major technical breakthrough," the Chinese team wrote in the journal Nature.

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Space race

In their paper, the Tianwen-1 scientists noted the chance for international collaboration to "advance our knowledge of Mars to an unprecedented level." It's not only their own probe and NASA's that are arriving at the planet next year, but also the United Arab Emirates' Hope Probe, which blasted off on Sunday. The Hope Probe is the Arab world's first interplanetary mission. Scientists working for NASA and China's space agency have enjoyed a collegiate relationship in the past. They've collaborated on the International Space Station, and congratulated each other on successful missions, such as China's landing of a probe on the far side of the Moon, the first country to ever do so. But for all the insistence of those involved to the contrary, the space race is inescapably political. NASA's early missions, particularly its historic landing of humans on the Moon in 1969, were fueled by the Cold War rivalry between Washington and the Soviet Union.

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This photo taken on July 17, 2020 shows a Long March 5 rocket being transferred before a planned launch in Wenchang in China's southern Hainan province.

Beijing, for its part, is well aware of the potential prestige it could gain by outstripping the US in space. If Tianwen-1 is successful, it has plans to eventually send a manned mission to Mars.

Under President Xi Jinping, China has invested billions of dollars in building up its space program, even as it asserted its influence back on Earth more aggressively and pursued the "great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation." Space has been singled out by the Chinese government in its 13th Five Year Plan as a research priority, especially deep space explorations and in-orbit space craft. As well as the Mars mission, Beijing is also planning to launch a permanent space station by 2022, and is looking at sending a manned probe to the Moon possibly in the 2030s. This program is building on the findings from China's recent missions to the Moon, particularly the Yutu rovers, the first of which had to abandon its mission half way into the three-month timescale due to a breakdown. Yutu-2, which landed on the far-side of the Moon last year, has been a huge success. "Our overall goal is that, by around 2030, China will be among the major space powers of the world," Wu Yanhua, deputy chief of the National Space Administration, said in 2016.

A rendering of NASA's Perseverance rover on Mars. The probe is due to arrive at the red planet in February 2021.

Mission to Mars

China came late to the space race. And while it has made incredible strides in recent decades, outpacing NASA — at least in terms of bragging rights, if not scientifically — would require something spectacular, like landing a human on Mars.

But there is a reason that since 1972, all space exploration has been carried out by robots. Not only are they cheaper, they're also far longer-lasting and more durable: No country wants to be the first to have an astronaut die on another planet. Landing robotic probes on Mars is hard enough, given the planet's atmospheric conditions. Getting a human there safely might be next to impossible. But this hasn't stopped politicians speculating about a manned mission to the red planet. Early in his term, US President Donald Trump authorized NASA to "lead an innovative space exploration program to send American astronauts back to the moon, and eventually Mars." Trump also created Space Force, a new branch of the armed services. At an unveiling of the organization's flag earlier this year, the US leader said that "space is going to be the future. Both in terms of defense and offense and so many other things."

"Already, from what I'm hearing and based on reports, we are now the leader in space," he added.

Nor is Washington about to let China overtake it. Last year, when CNN quoted Joan Johnson-Freese, a professor at the US Naval War College, saying the "odds of the next voice transmission from the moon being in Mandarin are high," Trump-appointed NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine retorted, "Hmmm, our astronauts speak English."

Mars missions are latest arena in the US-China rivalry

© STR/AFP/AFP via Getty Images This photo taken on July 17, 2020 shows a Long March 5 rocket being transferred before a planned launch in Wenchang in China's southern Hainan province. - After sending humans into orbit and landing a probe on the Moon, China is aiming for another milestone in its space ambitions with the launch of a Mars rover between July 20 and 25. (Photo by STR / AFP) / China OUT (Photo by STR/AFP via Getty Images)

Two years after humans last landed a probe on Mars, both the United States and China are launching missions to the red planet this month and setting up a new arena for their growing rivalry.

Weather permitting, China's Tianwen-1 is expected to blast off Thursday from Hainan Island in the country's south, though the government has yet to publicly confirm the date. NASA's Perseverance rover is scheduled to launch on July 30. Both probes are expected to reach Mars in February 2021.

Perseverance aims to answer questions about the potential for life on Mars, including seeking signs of habitable conditions in the planet's ancient past and looking for evidence of microbial life. The rover has a drill which can be used to collect core samples from rocks and set them aside to potentially be collected and examined by a later mission.

If successful, Perseverance will be the seventh probe NASA has landed on Mars, and the fourth rover. Curiosity, which landed on the red planet in 2012, is still sending back data about the Martian surface.

Tianwen-1, whose name means "Quest for Heavenly Truth," is China's first mission to Mars. The probe will orbit the planet before landing a rover on the surface, with the hope that it can gather important information about the Martian soil, geological structure, environment, atmosphere, and search for signs of water.

© NASA A rendering of NASA's Perseverance rover on Mars. The probe is due to arrive at the red planet in February 2021.

In a paper last week, the scientific team behind Tianwen-1 said the probe is "going to orbit, land and release a rover all on the very first try, and coordinate observations with an orbiter. No planetary missions have ever been implemented in this way."

By contrast, NASA sent multiple orbiters to Mars before ever attempting a landing. Pulling off the landing is a far more difficult task.

"If successful, it would signify a major technical breakthrough," the Chinese team wrote in the journal Nature.

Space race

In their paper, the Tianwen-1 scientists noted the chance for international collaboration to "advance our knowledge of Mars to an unprecedented level." It's not only their own probe and NASA's that are arriving at the planet next year, but also the United Arab Emirates' Hope Probe, which blasted off on Sunday. The Hope Probe is the Arab world's first interplanetary mission.

© STR/AFP/AFP via Getty Images This photo taken on July 17, 2020 shows a Long March 5 rocket being transferred before a planned launch in Wenchang in China's southern Hainan province.

Scientists working for NASA and China's space agency have enjoyed a collegiate relationship in the past. They've collaborated on the International Space Station, and congratulated each other on successful missions, such as China's landing of a probe on the far side of the Moon, the first country to ever do so.

But for all the insistence of those involved to the contrary, the space race is inescapably political. NASA's early missions, particularly its historic landing of humans on the Moon in 1969, were fueled by the Cold War rivalry between Washington and the Soviet Union.

Beijing, for its part, is well aware of the potential prestige it could gain by outstripping the US in space. If Tianwen-1 is successful, it has plans to eventually send a manned mission to Mars.

Under President Xi Jinping, China has invested billions of dollars in building up its space program, even as it asserted its influence back on Earth more aggressively and pursued the "great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation."

Space has been singled out by the Chinese government in its 13th Five Year Plan as a research priority, especially deep space explorations and in-orbit space craft. As well as the Mars mission, Beijing is also planning to launch a permanent space station by 2022, and is looking at sending a manned probe to the Moon possibly in the 2030s.

This program is building on the findings from China's recent missions to the Moon, particularly the Yutu rovers, the first of which had to abandon its mission half way into the three-month timescale due to a breakdown. Yutu-2, which landed on the far-side of the Moon last year, has been a huge success.

"Our overall goal is that, by around 2030, China will be among the major space powers of the world," Wu Yanhua, deputy chief of the National Space Administration, said in 2016.

Mission to Mars

China came late to the space race. And while it has made incredible strides in recent decades, outpacing NASA — at least in terms of bragging rights, if not scientifically — would require something spectacular, like landing a human on Mars.

But there is a reason that since 1972, all space exploration has been carried out by robots. Not only are they cheaper, they're also far longer-lasting and more durable: No country wants to be the first to have an astronaut die on another planet.

Landing robotic probes on Mars is hard enough, given the planet's atmospheric conditions. Getting a human there safely might be next to impossible.

But this hasn't stopped politicians speculating about a manned mission to the red planet. Early in his term, US President Donald Trump authorized NASA to "lead an innovative space exploration program to send American astronauts back to the moon, and eventually Mars."

Trump also created Space Force, a new branch of the armed services. At an unveiling of the organization's flag earlier this year, the US leader said that "space is going to be the future. Both in terms of defense and offense and so many other things."

"Already, from what I'm hearing and based on reports, we are now the leader in space," he added.

Nor is Washington about to let China overtake it. Last year, when CNN quoted Joan Johnson-Freese, a professor at the US Naval War College, saying the "odds of the next voice transmission from the moon being in Mandarin are high," Trump-appointed NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine retorted, "Hmmm, our astronauts speak English."

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NASA's Mars 2020 rover and helicopter are nearly ready for launch

This time NASA plans to send its most capable rover to date, Perseverance, Zurbuchen continued. At around 10 feet in length, it’s also the longest and heaviest rover NASA’s built to date. “Perseverance is our first mission of astrobiology,” he noted. “In this case, to search for ancient life as part of its top line science goals.” As such, the space agency has selected the Jezero Crater, a 28-mile wide swatch of Mars thought to once have been the site of an ancient river delta, as its landing target. NASA boffins are confident that a body of water roughly the size of Lake Tahoe existed there between 3 and 4 billion years ago. NASA hopes to find signs of ancient microbial life -- at least a few preserved organic molecules -- in the carbonite-packed clay covering the region.  

“Perseverance will bring all human senses to Mars,“ Zurbuchen said. “It will sense the air around it, see and scan the horizon, hear the planet with microphones on the surface for the first time, feel as it picks up samples and perhaps even ‘taste’ them in a census pixel and other instruments sampling the chemistry of the rocks and soil around it.” 

Perseverance’s efforts will also help ease the lives of human space explorers that come after it. The numerous scientific experiments the rover will carry include tests to see how readily carbon dioxide might be converted to breathable oxygen on the planet, how organic compounds present on Mars interact with and degrade spacesuit materials, as well as terrain mapping efforts to scout future landing sites.

The rover won’t be operating on its own however. Perseverance will work hand-in-hand with human researchers during its foray into Jezero Crater, Dr. Michael Watkins, Director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, pointed out. “We touchdown somewhere in our landing zone and then our scientists have to find the very best spots -- those pots of gold -- that represent this critical habitable environment and possible bio signatures as well,” he said. “And that is where the mission... becomes a partnership between robotics and humans.”

A team of planetary scientists will initially guide the rover to a promising patch of ground where Perseverance’s suite of optical, x-ray, and ultraviolet cameras to further hone in on a target site. The rover will then deploy its coring drill to take and seal samples for return to the Earth during the following mission scheduled for 2026, Watkins explained.

“This mission, we're out there trying to find something we've never found before on another planet, and then we're trying to capture it and isolate it and bring those samples back to take a close look at them,” Watkins said, “much like it with the moon rocks.”

NASA

While Perseverance toils in the mud, the Ingenuity helicopter will hopefully be taking to the skies above the Red Planet. Mars may technically have an atmosphere, it is exceedingly thin -- only around 1 percent as dense as what we have on Earth -- which makes keeping vehicles aloft a very challenging task, despite the planet’s lower gravity compared to our own. Ingenuity aims to prove that we actually can. The 4-pound autonomous helicopter will arrive on Mars strapped to Perseverance’s belly. Once on the ground, Ingenuity will spin its 1.2 meter-long blades up to 2,400 RPM and perform a series of five test flights over the course of a Martian month. 

If it proves itself airworthy, the success could open up broad new exploratory avenues above Mars. Future missions could carry Ingenuity’s progeny to serve as “robotic scouts, surveying terrain from above, or as full standalone science craft carrying instrument payloads,” according to NASA. 

“Today we explore Mars from spacecraft in orbit and rovers moving on the surface,” MiMi Aung, Mars Helicopter Project Manager at the JPL, said. “In the future, there'll be astronauts on the surface. The helicopter can serve as scouts for rovers and astronauts” as well as reach areas that would be otherwise inaccessible from the ground.

“All of that experience will feed into future, more capable rotorcraft that we envision and really add that aerial dimension to space exploration for our team,” she continued.

Perseverance and Ingenuity will have some company on the planet once they arrive next February. The UAE’s rover, Hope, launched last weekend and is expected to arrive on Mars around the same time as NASA. China’s Tianwen-1 mission is slated to get underway on July 23rd and should put an orbiter, lander and rover on to Mars when it arrives early next year.

“With the Moon to Mars Program and the robotic precursors,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine concluded, “all of this is leading to a day when, when we have humans living and working not just on the moon but on another planet, so the future is very bright, there's lots of opportunities.”