Missions to Mars – Popular Questions Answered

By Pranay Chawla

Lately, there have been several missions to Mars. On the 9th of February of this year, the UAE’s Hope satellite, which is their first spacecraft sent to Mars, entered the Red Planet’s orbit, and the next day, China’s first spacecraft sent to Mars, Tianwen-1, did the same. Meanwhile, the Perseverance rover, which is the first part of a three-leg mission with NASA and the ESA, reached Mars on the 18th of February 2021. Tianwen-1 will soon follow Perseverance and become the first non-American spacecraft to land on the Red Planet and succeed in its mission. However, many people often have questions to do with complicated space missions such as these, so I am going to explore some of the most common of these questions.

Why have there been so many missions to Mars lately? What is so special about now?

The reason for this is that, once every two years, Mars and Earth are in the perfect position for a spacecraft to travel from Earth to Mars, using the minimum amount of rocket fuel. The last time that the two planets were in this position was in July 2020 and so, these three spacecrafts took off. Since the journey takes around seven months, despite being so close, they are only reaching Mars now.

The reason that all of these missions are going to Mars is that, at the current time, it is the easiest planet to travel to and land on. Moreover, due to the physical makeup of the planet and its atmosphere, Mars is the planet most similar to Earth. This means that it is very important to study Mars, as it will tell us more about our home planet. Furthermore, scientists think that Mars is the most likely planet to be inhabited by life. This means that missions to Mars are more important than a mission to another planet.

What are the rovers going to do on Mars?

Since missions to Mars have a wide variety of names, this is a very commonly asked question. The Hope probe, sent by the UAE, aims to observe several things, including how natural atoms of gases like oxygen and hydrogen, leak into space. The reason that this is so important is that they are remnants of water that was once extremely abundant on Mars. The probe will also be taking pictures of the surface of Mars, and because of this, will not be landing, unlike Perseverance and Tianwen-1. Perseverance’s mission is the first of a three-leg plan to bring samples of Mars back to Earth. The rover is going to search for signs of past microbial life at the Jezero crater. To do this, it will collect samples of rock and soil, and then leave them on the surface for return to the Earth at a future date. In 2026, the ESA will send another rover which will collect these samples, and the samples will be sent into Mars’ orbit to a spacecraft, which will bring the samples back to Earth. However, because of the current distance between Earth and Mars, it is predicted that the samples will not reach Earth until 2031. The rover will also demonstrate the first powered flight on Mars. It will deploy a small drone-like helicopter, called Ingenuity, which will fly around Mars for a short period of time. This test flight is very useful, as it will show that the drone is able to fly and work properly. Drones are very useful on Mars because they can reach areas that rovers are unable to, so this is quite an important aspect of Perseverance’s mission. The last mission, Tianwen-1, aims to first orbit the Red Planet, and then release a rover out onto the surface. This rover, like Perseverance, will collect samples of Mars and bring them back to Earth.

Is it dangerous?

The answer to this question is yes. The lead for the entry ascent landing team for Perseverance, Allen Chen, says that there are over 70 things that have to go right without them doing anything. This is because of the delay when transmitting signals between Earth and Mars – by the time the news that the rover has entered orbit reaches Earth, it will have already landed. These events include the ropes detaching properly and the speed of the spacecraft not being affected by any outside influences. Because of this, landing on Mars is known as the seven minutes of terror. If any one aspect goes wrong, there is nothing that the team on Earth will be able to do and the mission will fail. This means that both the Perseverance rover and the rover in the Tiawen-1 mission will be in danger while landing. But for the Perseverance rover, there is an added danger. The aim of the mission is to examine the Jezero crater, where there used to be a river. This place is extremely rocky, with craters that are near impossible for the rover to get out of and parts which it will not be able to cross. It is for this reason that a drone is being tested in the mission. These dangers also caused NASA to decide against landing Curiosity in this region. However, Perseverance has been made much more robust than Curiosity, just so that it could travel in this rocky terrain. Because of this, the Perseverance rover is the most advanced rover made yet. 

Some may think that because it is not landing on the surface of Mars, the Hope spacecraft will not be in danger. However, this is not true. While it will not have to deal with the dangers of landing, the journey itself is still dangerous. The spacecraft can be damaged by solar radiation, and even without this, it is possible that the equipment inside is damaged. Because of this, even without landing, it is still very dangerous for the Hope spacecraft.

Missions to Mars are very important because they can tell us more about our planet, and, if evidence of life is found, about how life developed. These very technologically advanced rovers like Perseverance would help us understand more about other planets, as well as our own. These missions are also an important step in space travel as it prepares us for what lies beyond the solar system. Since these questions are very commonly asked when talking about missions to Mars, I hope that these answers were helpful  in understanding more about current space travel.