“Does life exist anywhere else in the universe other than Earth?” This is one of the most common questions that every human have thought about. This thought has lead to many discoveries. With the invention of the telescope by Galileo, we found that there is more beyond our sky, this, at last, leads us into space missions. The space missions started in the early 20th century, from then we have been constantly unleashing the mysteries of the universe.
The Mars space mission has started since 1960. So far 56 missions carried out of which only 26 have been successful. More missions have been attempted to mars than to any other place in the solar system except the Moon.
What is the importance of Mars missions or why are we greatly involved in Mars?
Mars is our closest neighbour share similarities with us. Both having valleys and mountains, weather and seasons, volcanoes and ice caps. Interestingly a Mars day is 24hr 39min which is only a little bit longer than earth. Also, evidence suggests that Mars were once full of water, warmer and had a thicker atmosphere offering a potentially habitable environment.
The Mars scientists are now ready to take the next big step ie to bring the Martian samples back to Earth to unlock the mysteries which can be used to :
1. To determine whether life ever arose on Mars
2. Characterize the climate of Mars
3. Characterize the geology of Mars
4. Prepare for human exploration.
What is this big step? And why is it called so? ?
‘The Mars perseverance Mission’. It is an international collaborative mission by ESA and NASA. In this mission we travel over 53 million km to Mars landing, collecting samples and launching a vehicle to return the samples to Earth. This mission span a decade involving 4 launches including 3 from Earth and 1 from Mars.
How is this going to work ?
The whole mission is categorised into submissions
Mission 1: The NASA’s 2020 Mars Perseverance Rover
The Perseverance Rover is expected to leave earth in the 2020 summer and will land on Feb 2021. After the rover set it’s foot on Mars it will start collecting the Martian samples (rocks, soil..) in cigar sized metal cylinders and leave them there for later pick up. This will take around 1 year
Mission 2: NASA’s Sample Retrieval Lander Mission
At this stage, the ESA will be collaborating by providing the Sample Fetch Rover. The NASA’s SRL carrying the SFR will depart earth by July 2026 and arrive by August 2028. when it reaches the mars surface the lander will deploy the rover. The rover will collect the sample containers from the Martian surface and bring it back to the retrieval lander over a 6 month period of operations and place them in a MAV ( Mars Ascent Vehicle ) – a small rocket to launch the container module into Mars orbit. This will launch by spring 2029 from Mars into its orbit.
Mission 3: The Earth Return Orbiter
The ERO will depart the earth by October 2026 and after a series of events, it will arrive in its final orbit by July 2028. The ERO will spend up about 6 months locating the container module through optical tracking. Once located the orbiter will guide itself into a position capable to catch and trap the container module. Then it will orient the container module for loading into the earth entry module. After the earth entry module is loaded and sealed, ERO will target Mars to Earth return in 2031. This mission final phase will occur in spring 2032 by reaching the earth.
– Bincy Babu Raj
Image credits: ESA
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