Production: Adriana Toca
Despite the pandemic, 2020 has been an extraordinary year for space exploration missions. One of the most talked about achievements of the moment has revolved around space exploration, hand in hand with SpaceX and NASA. The Falcon9 rocket and the Crew Dragon spacecraft, owned by Elon Musk’s privately owned company, carried two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) for the first time in history, on the first commercial manned flight in history. . Finally, on Sunday, August 2, he returned to Earth in the first splashdown – a rescue of astronauts at sea – in 45 years.
Shortly before, during the month of July, we saw the launch of no less than 3 Martian exploration missions: the United Emirates mission, Mars Hope; the China Tianwen-1 mission; and the US mission Perseverance.
In this video we will tell you what the objective of these missions is and we will review how many are currently active on the red planet.
In July 2020, a very unique astronomical event took place, which different countries wanted to take advantage of: the translation of the Earth and that of Mars has placed both planets on a very close trajectory , which was very favorable for launching missions. bound for the red planet, very efficiently. This circumstance has been taken advantage of by the main powers in space exploration.
The United Arab Emirates has launched its first interplanetary mission: the launch of Mars Hope, took place on July 19. It is a probe that will study Mars from its orbit; In other words, the mission will not land on the red planet, but will be limited to studying the climate of Mars and its atmospheric conditions for at least two years.
The spacecraft carried by a Japanese rocket is already heading for the red planet, where it is scheduled to land in February 2021, precisely the date on which the United Arab Emirates celebrates 50 years of life as a country.
China is rivaling the United States in space exploration; Instead of sending a small probe, China has decided to launch an orbiter and a rover to study the red planet. The launch of the Tianwen-1 mission, which means ‘celestial questions’, occurred on July 23, 2020. This mission is also scheduled to arrive on Mars in February 2021, and its objective will be to assess the surface and environment of the planet.
And finally, on July 31 there was the third launch of the month, that of NASA. The Perseverance rover was launched from an Atlas V rocket from the usual launch pad at Cape Canaveral. This is the first of three missions to bring samples from Mars to Earth.
The main objective of this rover is to study the habitability of Mars; not only to determine once and for all if it could harbor life in the past, but also to establish criteria for future human settlements on Mars.
