Posted on 02/08/2021 5:41:52 AM PST by MtnClimber
Anxious moment for scientists in US, China and UAE as spacecrafts enter crucial stages of long journey to red planet.
The skies above Mars will witness some startling aeronautical displays in the next few days when three rival space robot probes reach the red planet after journeying for millions of miles across space.
The United Arab Emirates’ probe Hope orbiter will arrive first, on Tuesday, followed by China’s Tianwen-1 spacecraft the next day. Finally, the US rover Perseverance will make its dramatic descent to the surface of Mars on 18 February.
It is a remarkable armada that reveals the growing desire of many nations to develop their own space technology and explore the solar system. Just how well they succeed when they reach their target this week and next remains to be seen, however. Mars is an unforgiving place to visit.
Of the dozens of Mars missions since 1960, about half have crashed or missed the planet altogether, thanks to component failures, rocket engine mishaps or software errors.
“It can be a heartbreaking business,” admitted UK physicist Colin Wilson, of Oxford University. “I have had instruments on two previous Mars missions – Britain’s Beagle lander and Europe’s Schiaparelli probe – and each time I was in the control room, clutching my seat, during their descents. And on both occasions the probes crashed.”
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Maybe the US spacecraft can dodge the debris.
Martians be thinking, INVASION!
Our team at JPL Pasadena are the greatest. They are truly patriotic.
UAE Hope Probe: Alahwahoo Radar!
PRC Tianwen-1 : Kill the Uighur!
USA Marine Rover: VOTE TRUMP !
The UAE? Who sold them a mars probe?
And people want to go there?
Humans better odds of submitting Everest and living to tell the tale.
With odds like that, you'd have to be nuts to sign up for that odyssey.
It's not the kind of place to raise your kids.
I wonder if the China probe is virus free.
“It’s not the kind of place to raise your kids. “
Still better than any leftist run city. ;-)
Good one.
...but at least we aren't at the mercy of some microprocessor or defective O2 tank.
USA and UAE will make it. China will say they made it.
UAE will crap out after 4 months. USA will last 3+ years.
One of my kids, who works in the space industry sent us a post about the US lander. I think he conveniently forgot to mention the two others non-American ones.
The real question is who get a colony there first—and the resources.
The Hope Probe took off from the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan, last July.
“To build the spacecraft, they partnered with a team in the US, at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. And to find a novel science objective for Hope’s mission, they consulted the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group (MEPAG), a forum created by NASA to plan explorations of Mars.”
Considering the distances involved, the communication delays, the harshness of the Martian environment, and the incredible complexity of any Mars lander, it’s axing the success rate is as high as 50%.
Hope Perseverance makes a successful landing on the surface. The lander is carrying a helicopter, which is amazing considering the atmosphere on Mars (0.168 PSI) is a fraction of the atmospheric pressure at the summit of Everest (4.89 PSI).
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/6-things-to-know-about-nasas-ingenuity-mars-helicopter
And blow this blue marble to oblivion.
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