The inhabitants of Earth are on a new important date this summer with Mars, with the launch of three exploration missions towards the Red Planet, the new horizon of humanity, hoping to monitor signs of previous life on its surface and in preparation for sending manned missions in the future.
The astronomical cycle provides only one launch possibility every 26 months when the distance between Mars and Earth is shorter than usual, which makes the journey easier. The distance is then 55 million kilometers traveled within six months.
Three countries are behind these missions. The United Arab Emirates will open the round on July 15, by sending the first Arab probe to explore planets, called “Hope”, to study the atmosphere of Mars.
The robotic unmanned probe will launch from Japan's Tanegashima Space Center, at a new station within the UAE's ambitious space program based on building a human settlement on Mars within the next 100 years by the year 2117.
After that comes the turn of China, which will send its first flight to the Red Planet with the “Tianwen” mission (questions to the sky), which includes a vehicle and a small robot, between July 20 and 25. The task is to put a probe into comfortable orbit, lower it to the surface of the Red Planet, and then direct it remotely on the surface to conduct analyses.
China is investing billions of dollars in its space program, including launching satellites and sending manned missions.
As for the most ambitious of these missions, it is the American “March 2020”, which will launch on July 30, and within the framework of which the “Perseverance” probe will land on the surface of the Red Planet, at the start of an unprecedented program of its magnitude to take samples and transfer them to Earth. This mission constitutes a major station in the search for traces of life on this planet.
A fourth Russian-European mission, named "Exomars", was to be sent with a drilling probe. But the mission was postponed to 2022 due to the “Covid-19” pandemic.
This interest in the Red Planet is not new. Mars, the closest planet to Earth, constitutes a real scientific mine, and since the sixties it has received in its orbit or on its surface dozens of mostly American automatic probes, many of which failed.
However, since the beginning of the current millennium and the discovery of ancient traces of liquid water on the surface of the planet, the gravity of Mars has increased, which has become a priority in space exploration missions.
It is the only planet on which we have had the opportunity to observe a form of previous life on its surface, and the more we know, Around him, the promises associated with him increased. We feel that something exciting is coming up and we should be involved in it.” And the French space agency designed one of the main devices in the “Perseverance” probe of the US Space Agency (NASA).
Uninhabitable
Many parties, including the United States, Europe, India, China and the UAE, are trying to score points in this endeavor, as is the case with the moon, to impose itself as a major scientific and space power.
Japan will join this race in 2024 by sending a probe to explore “Phobos”, one of the moons of Mars.
There is a bigger dream behind this, represented by "contributing to the adventure of human exploration of Mars, which constitutes the extreme limits, to which man may go after 20, 30 or 40 years," says Michel Viso.
Only the United States is seriously considering the possibility of sending a manned flight to Mars, and it is the only one that has undertaken detailed studies on the feasibility of such an adventure. But other countries may join in this effort.
The United Arab Emirates is studying the possibility of establishing a "science city" that simulates living conditions on Mars, with the aim of establishing a human colony there by 2117.
Mars today is a vast icy desert that slowly lost its dense atmosphere after widespread climate change some 3.5 billion years ago, and is therefore no longer immune to cosmic radiation. In short, this means that it is not “inhabitable” and cannot be turned into a “second earth”.
Four billion years ago, conditions on the surface of Mars were close to those prevailing on Earth when life appeared there,” said Jorge Fago, science officer for the European Space Agency’s “Exomars” mission.
However, why did life continue on Earth and initially disappeared from Mars, if it was available in the first place? A question that the various robots and probes roaming the surface of the Red Planet are trying to answer, such as the American robot “Curiosity”.
The “Perseverance” robot comes to complete the explorations of the famous robot by landing in a previously unexplored area, which is the Jezero crater, rich in sedimentary rocks, with delta-shaped terrain that may belong to the mouth of a river that used to end in a lake. It is an ideal site that may have preserved traces of past life, including liquid water and carbon in particular.
Mars 2020 will take about forty samples, about thirty of which will return to Earth. This will be done as part of a highly complex mission in several phases with an unprecedented re-launch process. This task will allow samples to be analyzed using highly efficient instruments on the ground. But that will not happen ten years ago.