India Joins Exclusive Club of Deep Space Research by Launching Mars Mission
India made a historic leap in space research as Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) launched the country's first satellite into Mar's orbit in early hours of September 24, 2014, thus joining the exclusive club of USA, Russia and European Space Agency. What startled academics and policymakers about Indian achievement was that the Indian mission, known as Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), was made completely based on indigenous technology and resources at a cost of around $75 million while USA's much larger Mars mission, known as Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission, or Maven, cost almost 10 times, or $671 million.
Presence of Methane in Mar's Atmosphere Rekindles Hope for Life's Presence in the Planet
A year after all but rejecting the presence of Methane in Martian atmosphere, scientists found new evidence of significant presence of Methane in the planet based on the data collected by the NASA's Curiosity rover. The gas might have been generated in recent times as sunlight and chemical reactions would break up the molecules within a couple of centuries. There are two major ways, according to the most of the scientists, methane might have been created in the Martian atmosphere:
* Serpentinization: It's a geological process that requires both heat and liquid water to create Methane
* Microbial Process: Methane is created as a form of waste from microbes, also known as methanogens
It's the second process that tantalizes the scientific community although even the first process, or serpentinization, would also provide indirect evidence of life in the planet. The finding was reported in the journal Science and reported by media on December 16, 2014.
NASA Presents Strongest Evidence of Presence of Water on Mars
NASA scientists on September 28, 2015 provided some tantalizing evidence based on photographs taken by Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) that water might exist in liquid form on some Martian slopes. In 2008, NASA said that evidence had pointed toward presence of frozen water. However, the recent evidence from MRO implies rivulets about 12 to 15 feet wide and 300 feet or more long. They apparently consist of moist soil, not standing water. The water in the rivulets contains salts--not ordinary table salt, but magnesium perchlorate, magnesium chlorate and sodium perchlorate.
Russia-Europe Collaboration on Mars Mission
Despite the most tense and turbulent time defining the bilateral relations between Russia and Europe since the end of Cold War, both parties have been leaping ahead with space exploration program rivaling America's. On March 14, 2016, European Space Agency's ExoMars spacecraft will be launched on the top of a Russian Proton rocket from the steppes of Kazakhstan. After a seven-month journey, ExoMars will enter Martian atmosphere. Three days prior to entering the Martian atmosphere, two components of ExoMars will separate out from each other. The lander component, Schiaparelli, named after the 19th century Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli, will hurtle toward Martian surface at a speed of 13,000 mph and quickly decelerate as it will approach the surface. After the touchdown, Schiaparelli's battery will last for three or four days. The primary objective of Schiaparelli is to test the viability of its landing system as in the last time ESA's Beagle 2 spacecraft that had accompanied with Mars Express Orbiter failed to deploy its landing system successfully in 2003. Beside testing its landing system, Schiaparelli will also carry related equipment to measure Martian atmosphere in the midst of a dust storm season. ExoMar's orbiter component, Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), will revolve Mars at a height of 250 miles and is expected to last at least through 2022. TGO will carry instruments that will detect the presence, and if so, measure the quantity of gaseous substances such as Nitrogen, water vapor and methane. Especially tantalizing is any clue of presence of methane gas in Martian atmosphere as methane may be obtained through two processes:
* Serpentinization: It's a geological process that requires both heat and liquid water to create Methane
* Microbial Process: Methane is created as a form of waste from microbes, also known as methanogens
Since chemical reaction and sunlight break down methane molecules fairly quickly, any possible presence of methane in Martian atmosphere is to be deemed as being generated in recent time. The challenge at that time for TGO instruments is to find evidence whether the methane gas has been formed due to Microbial Process, a clear indication of presence of life in Mars.
ExoMars has been originally proposed to be launched by NASA, but American space agency has backed out in 2012, thus opening an entry for Russian space agency. The second phase of Russia-ESA ExoMars joint collaboration will involve a rover, and is tentatively scheduled to be launched in 2018.
************************************* InSight Lander ******************************
Successful Landing of InSight
It was a perfect, nerve-wracking landing of the latest Martian probe on November 26, 2018 that brought a rapturous applause to the scientists from U.S., Germany and France whose collaboration had yielded the fruit of successful launching, and now successful landing, of InSight on Mars' Elysium Planitia just before 3PM ET. Mission Control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California was filled with cheers, screams and tears. For the next two earth years, the mission of InSight will be to investigate Red Planet's interior to try to find out clues how it had evolved into present day desolate terrain since its birth 4 billion years ago. At its birth time, Mars was more like our planet, with magnetic field, a churning mantle and metallic core. Images from satellites reveal Mars of a planet with long-gone lakes, deltas and river-carved canyons.
The last 3 billion years were a slow-motion disaster for Mars as dynamo had died down, the magnetic field had faltered, the water had evaporated and half of its atmosphere had thinned with solar winds stripping it away. The InSight will try to find out why. InSight's successful landing on Elysium Planitia also helped preserve two accompanying mini-satellites, MarCo, fitted with solar arrays, a color camera and an antenna for relaying communication to earth. Now, data will be flowing to earth seamlessly. The landing of probe on the Mars is as difficult as can be. Scientists have no means to rectify any mistakes as there is a lag time of about 7 minutes for the light to traverse 100 million miles to earth. The entry into Martian atmosphere was cinematic, nerve-wrenching and thrilling: entering with a herculean speed of 12,300 miles per hour and the lander's heat shield was torched with friction that rose the temperature to 2,700 degrees. Within minutes, a supersonic parachute deployed, slowed down the lander and separated the heat shield and deployed four legs. It was a perfect landing. Now, the mission begins, and unlike earlier probes such as Opportunity and Curiosity that collected interesting information about Martian rocks, InSight will monitor the tiny tremors and collect data from the planet's inside core.
************************************* InSight Lander ******************************
Opportunity's Communication Stops
After a 300-million-plus mile journey and close to one-and-half decade of sending panoramic Martian pictures to earth, Opportunity lander on February 13, 2019 was pronounced dead due to an epic Martian storm that had erupted last year. Its last picture sent to earth was on June 10, 2018. Although Opportunity didn't send any communication back to earth since June 10, 2018, scientists were hopeful that the probe would begin communication after the Martian storm was over. Opportunity and its twin rover, Spirit, were launched in the summer of 2003. In January 2004, both rovers touched down on Mars, but on the opposite sides, and began exploration of possibilities that once the Red Planet might have hosted environment conducive to life. Spirit landed in Gusev Crater, a rocky formation of lava. The crater was very hard to navigate, and over the next six days, Spirit traveled more than a mile to Columbia Hills and began to make crucial finds. Spirit's mission ended in March 2010, a year after its wheels broke off on the thin crust Gusev Crater. Spirit was officially declared dead in May 2011. Opportunity, on the other hand, landed in Meridian Planum, possibly a dried former lakebed, and using its Spectrometers, a tool to analyze mineral composition, Opportunity found a mineral, Hemanite, that's typically formed in water. When an epic Martian storm had hit in May 2018, Opportunity was on its way to Endeavor crater to study its inner wall. As Opportunity has been pronounced dead on February 13, 2019, the rover has set a record of traversing the maximum extraterrestrial distance of 28.05 miles.
************************** UAE'S MARS EXPLORATION ORBITER *****************
UAE Becomes the First Arab World Nation to Undertake Interplanetary Mission
After sending its first astronaut to International Space Station in the Fall of 2019, United Arab Emirates on July 20, 2020 leapt to a historic success in space endeavor when it had launched Arab world's first Mars rover from a Japanese launch site, Tanegashima Space Center, on a small island in South Japan. The rover, Amal, is set to reach at Mars in February 2021. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries' H-IIA rocket is carrying Amal. The July 20, 2020, launch came months after Hazzaa Ali Almansoori spent over a week at ISS last Fall, marking back-to-back achievements in space research. UAE has set a goal of building a human colony in Mars in 2117.
India made a historic leap in space research as Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) launched the country's first satellite into Mar's orbit in early hours of September 24, 2014, thus joining the exclusive club of USA, Russia and European Space Agency. What startled academics and policymakers about Indian achievement was that the Indian mission, known as Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), was made completely based on indigenous technology and resources at a cost of around $75 million while USA's much larger Mars mission, known as Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission, or Maven, cost almost 10 times, or $671 million.
Presence of Methane in Mar's Atmosphere Rekindles Hope for Life's Presence in the Planet
A year after all but rejecting the presence of Methane in Martian atmosphere, scientists found new evidence of significant presence of Methane in the planet based on the data collected by the NASA's Curiosity rover. The gas might have been generated in recent times as sunlight and chemical reactions would break up the molecules within a couple of centuries. There are two major ways, according to the most of the scientists, methane might have been created in the Martian atmosphere:
* Serpentinization: It's a geological process that requires both heat and liquid water to create Methane
* Microbial Process: Methane is created as a form of waste from microbes, also known as methanogens
It's the second process that tantalizes the scientific community although even the first process, or serpentinization, would also provide indirect evidence of life in the planet. The finding was reported in the journal Science and reported by media on December 16, 2014.
NASA Presents Strongest Evidence of Presence of Water on Mars
NASA scientists on September 28, 2015 provided some tantalizing evidence based on photographs taken by Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) that water might exist in liquid form on some Martian slopes. In 2008, NASA said that evidence had pointed toward presence of frozen water. However, the recent evidence from MRO implies rivulets about 12 to 15 feet wide and 300 feet or more long. They apparently consist of moist soil, not standing water. The water in the rivulets contains salts--not ordinary table salt, but magnesium perchlorate, magnesium chlorate and sodium perchlorate.
Russia-Europe Collaboration on Mars Mission
Despite the most tense and turbulent time defining the bilateral relations between Russia and Europe since the end of Cold War, both parties have been leaping ahead with space exploration program rivaling America's. On March 14, 2016, European Space Agency's ExoMars spacecraft will be launched on the top of a Russian Proton rocket from the steppes of Kazakhstan. After a seven-month journey, ExoMars will enter Martian atmosphere. Three days prior to entering the Martian atmosphere, two components of ExoMars will separate out from each other. The lander component, Schiaparelli, named after the 19th century Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli, will hurtle toward Martian surface at a speed of 13,000 mph and quickly decelerate as it will approach the surface. After the touchdown, Schiaparelli's battery will last for three or four days. The primary objective of Schiaparelli is to test the viability of its landing system as in the last time ESA's Beagle 2 spacecraft that had accompanied with Mars Express Orbiter failed to deploy its landing system successfully in 2003. Beside testing its landing system, Schiaparelli will also carry related equipment to measure Martian atmosphere in the midst of a dust storm season. ExoMar's orbiter component, Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), will revolve Mars at a height of 250 miles and is expected to last at least through 2022. TGO will carry instruments that will detect the presence, and if so, measure the quantity of gaseous substances such as Nitrogen, water vapor and methane. Especially tantalizing is any clue of presence of methane gas in Martian atmosphere as methane may be obtained through two processes:
* Serpentinization: It's a geological process that requires both heat and liquid water to create Methane
* Microbial Process: Methane is created as a form of waste from microbes, also known as methanogens
Since chemical reaction and sunlight break down methane molecules fairly quickly, any possible presence of methane in Martian atmosphere is to be deemed as being generated in recent time. The challenge at that time for TGO instruments is to find evidence whether the methane gas has been formed due to Microbial Process, a clear indication of presence of life in Mars.
ExoMars has been originally proposed to be launched by NASA, but American space agency has backed out in 2012, thus opening an entry for Russian space agency. The second phase of Russia-ESA ExoMars joint collaboration will involve a rover, and is tentatively scheduled to be launched in 2018.
************************************* InSight Lander ******************************
Successful Landing of InSight
It was a perfect, nerve-wracking landing of the latest Martian probe on November 26, 2018 that brought a rapturous applause to the scientists from U.S., Germany and France whose collaboration had yielded the fruit of successful launching, and now successful landing, of InSight on Mars' Elysium Planitia just before 3PM ET. Mission Control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California was filled with cheers, screams and tears. For the next two earth years, the mission of InSight will be to investigate Red Planet's interior to try to find out clues how it had evolved into present day desolate terrain since its birth 4 billion years ago. At its birth time, Mars was more like our planet, with magnetic field, a churning mantle and metallic core. Images from satellites reveal Mars of a planet with long-gone lakes, deltas and river-carved canyons.
The last 3 billion years were a slow-motion disaster for Mars as dynamo had died down, the magnetic field had faltered, the water had evaporated and half of its atmosphere had thinned with solar winds stripping it away. The InSight will try to find out why. InSight's successful landing on Elysium Planitia also helped preserve two accompanying mini-satellites, MarCo, fitted with solar arrays, a color camera and an antenna for relaying communication to earth. Now, data will be flowing to earth seamlessly. The landing of probe on the Mars is as difficult as can be. Scientists have no means to rectify any mistakes as there is a lag time of about 7 minutes for the light to traverse 100 million miles to earth. The entry into Martian atmosphere was cinematic, nerve-wrenching and thrilling: entering with a herculean speed of 12,300 miles per hour and the lander's heat shield was torched with friction that rose the temperature to 2,700 degrees. Within minutes, a supersonic parachute deployed, slowed down the lander and separated the heat shield and deployed four legs. It was a perfect landing. Now, the mission begins, and unlike earlier probes such as Opportunity and Curiosity that collected interesting information about Martian rocks, InSight will monitor the tiny tremors and collect data from the planet's inside core.
************************************* InSight Lander ******************************
Opportunity's Communication Stops
After a 300-million-plus mile journey and close to one-and-half decade of sending panoramic Martian pictures to earth, Opportunity lander on February 13, 2019 was pronounced dead due to an epic Martian storm that had erupted last year. Its last picture sent to earth was on June 10, 2018. Although Opportunity didn't send any communication back to earth since June 10, 2018, scientists were hopeful that the probe would begin communication after the Martian storm was over. Opportunity and its twin rover, Spirit, were launched in the summer of 2003. In January 2004, both rovers touched down on Mars, but on the opposite sides, and began exploration of possibilities that once the Red Planet might have hosted environment conducive to life. Spirit landed in Gusev Crater, a rocky formation of lava. The crater was very hard to navigate, and over the next six days, Spirit traveled more than a mile to Columbia Hills and began to make crucial finds. Spirit's mission ended in March 2010, a year after its wheels broke off on the thin crust Gusev Crater. Spirit was officially declared dead in May 2011. Opportunity, on the other hand, landed in Meridian Planum, possibly a dried former lakebed, and using its Spectrometers, a tool to analyze mineral composition, Opportunity found a mineral, Hemanite, that's typically formed in water. When an epic Martian storm had hit in May 2018, Opportunity was on its way to Endeavor crater to study its inner wall. As Opportunity has been pronounced dead on February 13, 2019, the rover has set a record of traversing the maximum extraterrestrial distance of 28.05 miles.
************************** UAE'S MARS EXPLORATION ORBITER *****************
UAE Becomes the First Arab World Nation to Undertake Interplanetary Mission
After sending its first astronaut to International Space Station in the Fall of 2019, United Arab Emirates on July 20, 2020 leapt to a historic success in space endeavor when it had launched Arab world's first Mars rover from a Japanese launch site, Tanegashima Space Center, on a small island in South Japan. The rover, Amal, is set to reach at Mars in February 2021. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries' H-IIA rocket is carrying Amal. The July 20, 2020, launch came months after Hazzaa Ali Almansoori spent over a week at ISS last Fall, marking back-to-back achievements in space research. UAE has set a goal of building a human colony in Mars in 2117.
Arab World's First Mission to Mars Achieves a Milestone with Orbiter Entering Martian Atmosphere
On February 9, 2021, UAE became the first Arab and Islamic nation to achieve the feat of its orbiter entering into orbit of the Red Planet. The mission control in Dubai erupted in joy as Amal entered into Mar's orbit after a 300-million-mile journey that had kept the UAE captivated over the past six months and 20 days. Amal will try to settle down on an elliptical orbit of 13,670 miles by 27,340 miles over the next few months and start to capture multitude of data from the atmosphere surrounding Mar. As the mission control in Dubai received message that Amal had successfully entered into the Martian atmosphere, an ebullient Omran Sharaf, mission control director, declared "UAE reaching Mars". Also, on hand was UAE's ruler for day-to-day operation, Mohammad bin Zayed al Nahyan.
There are two more missions closely following the UAE orbiter: China's mission and U.S. mission. China's mission involves a lander and an orbiter while U.S. rover Perseverance is about to land on the Martian surface on February 18, 2021.
************************** UAE'S MARS EXPLORATION ORBITER *****************
********************************** PERSEVERANCE ROVER **********************
Perseverance Launched to Probe on Mars
Perseverance, a MARS rover, was launched on July 30, 2020 from Cape Canaveral atop an Atlas V Rocket. The vehicle will drop the rover, if everything goes well, on Mars in February 2021.
************************** UAE'S MARS EXPLORATION ORBITER *****************
********************************** PERSEVERANCE ROVER **********************
Perseverance Launched to Probe on Mars
Perseverance, a MARS rover, was launched on July 30, 2020 from Cape Canaveral atop an Atlas V Rocket. The vehicle will drop the rover, if everything goes well, on Mars in February 2021.
Perseverance Lands on Mars
The Mars rover Perseverance landed on the Red Planet successfully on February 18, 2021. It will now seek traces of past life and collect soil and rock samples to be brought to earth one day. Swati Mohan, the guidance and control operations leader for the mission at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California announced the landing: "Touchdown confirmed! Perseverance is safely on the surface of the Mars, ready to begin seeking the signs of past life".
The touch-down occurred at 2:56 CT on February 18, 2021. Perseverance used its autonomous guidance system to navigate through hazardous surface and land perfectly on the surface of a dry, ancient Martian lake bed, Jezero Crater. The $2.5 billion Martian mission was equipped with brand new Terrain Relative Navigation, or TRN, system to help a perfect landing on the treacherous Martian surface. Perseverance will spend researching for past life over at least the next 687 days, or one Martian year.
The EDL, or Entry-Descent-Landing, maneuver has been entirely autonomous as it's too far for our scientists to guide the rover's last phase of arrival. The carrier of Perseverance entered the Martian atmosphere at 12,000 mph, deployed a heat shield to prevent burning out, used thrusters to slow down the speed, deployed parachute and eventually used a sky crane for final lowering of the rover on the Martian surface. In the next 30 Martian days, or sols, Perseverance will travel on the surface to a more convenient area which will be used as a flight pad for a 4-lb solar-powered helicopter, Ingenuity, to start flying over the terrain to collect data, marking the first time that such flight technology will be used on a different planet. Perseverance will also collect soil and rock samples to be brought back to earth by a future rover around 2031.
"Wrights Brothers Moment" Felt after a 30-second Flight in a Planet 178 million Miles away
A 4-pound helicopter, called the Ingenuity, took a 30-second flight over Martian surface on April 19, 2021 around 2:30AM Dallas time. It sent pictures to earth to Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It took almost 3 hours and traversed 178 million miles to reach the earth in a combination maneuvers: Ingenuity to rover; rover to an aircraft on Martian orbit, to NASA's Deep Station Network of antennae to eventually to JPL. The 30-second flight of Ingenuity is compared to Wright Brothers' 1903 debut flight.
Second Flight for Ingenuity: This Time Higher, Farther and Longer
Three days after making history of flying a flight in another planet, Ingenuity, the four-pound helicopter, took off for its second flight on April 22, 2021. This time, it went up as high as 16 feet, six feet higher than the 10-foot lift that Ingenuity had accomplished on April 19, 2021, flew 7 feet sideways and spent about 52 seconds, 13 seconds longer than the last time, in the Martian air, whose atmospheric composition of as thin as 1% of earth's atmosphere had made all the more difficult for Ingenuity to operate and fly without significant risk.
Ingenuity Makes its Longest Journey in Fourth Flight, More Flights in the Coming Days
In its fourth flight, the four-pound helicopter Ingenuity on April 30, 2021 traveled 872 feet at the height of 16 feet for two minutes, longest and farthest by a flying vehicle on a different planet. Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Ingenuity Project Manager MiMi Aung told reporters that "Ingenuity loves Mars". Now, Ingenuity will take more arduous task to go to more difficult terrains in the coming days.
Ingenuity Outlasts Expectation, Its Flight Life Declared over
After almost three years of flying in the ultra-thin Martian air, covering a collective distance of 10.5 miles, spending as much as 128.8 minutes of flight time, attaining a highest altitude of 78.7 feet and speeding on ground as high as 22 mph, the flying mission of Ingenuity drone is called over. It is an extraordinary feat to fly a drone in an atmosphere that's air density is as low as 1% of the earth's. Ingenuity sent many insightful information about Martian craters, soil, rock formation and other aspects of Martian landscape. On January 25, 2024, NASA called it quits after one or more blades had "sustained damage during landing" on January 18, 2024, incapacitating the propeller from undertaking any future flight.
********************************** PERSEVERANCE ROVER **********************
********************************** PERSEVERANCE ROVER **********************
********************************* CHINESE MARS MISSION ***********************
Chinese Lander Lands on Martian Surface
In another ace to its space success, a Chinese spacecraft landed on Mars for the first time, Xinhua News Agency announced on May 15, 2021, quoting China National Space Administration. A rover will emerge from the lander in a couple of days using a ramp and begin maneuvers in an icy area of Mars called the Utopia Plantia.
Scientists Find Traces of Recent Water
China-based scientists published an article on April 28, 2023 in the Science Advances that shed light and insight into crack- and crust-filled sand-dunes. Based on the information sent before Zhurong rover had gone for a long hibernation, mainly due to the Martian dust covering the solar panel, circa a year ago, Chinese scientists estimated that the salt-rich dunes with cracks and crusts had been formed between 1.4 million and 400,000 years ago.
********************************* CHINESE MARS MISSION ***********************
Mars Struck by Four Meteoroids a
Four meteoroids struck Martian surface late last year (2021) that had created "bloops", according to pictures sent by InSight lander on September 19, 2022.
