New plans for Mars exploration are being introduced, and a series of new challenges need to be overcome

Recently, my country announced that it will implement a Mars sample return mission around 2030. At the same time, India and Russia jointly planned Mars exploration, and the European Space Agency also proposed a future manned Mars landing goal. For a time, plans from various countries emerged, indicating that a new climax of Mars exploration is not far away. So what new goals will future Mars exploration focus on? To this end, what new technologies do astronauts from various countries need to develop and apply in order to overcome new challenges?

Life on Mars in the spotlight

The Mars exploration program began in 1960. After experiencing the frenzy in the 1960s and 1970s and the silence in the 1980s and 1990s, it ushered in another wave of exploration climax in the early 21st century. Currently, nine Mars exploration missions from China, the United States, ESA, the United Arab Emirates and other parties are underway. Judging from the latest Mars exploration plans of various countries and institutions, the international aerospace community will focus on five aspects in the future, including Mars life detection, Mars sample return, Mars satellite detection, Mars evolution history and manned landing on Mars. Among them, Mars life detection should be one of the projects that attract the most public attention.

Zhurong Mars Rover (Photo credit: China National Space Administration)

As we all know, Mars is located in the habitable zone of the solar system and is a "close neighbor" of the Earth. Both are terrestrial planets with very similar physiques, rotation periods, and elemental compositions. Therefore, in the early myths and legends of various human civilizations and modern science fiction works, Martian civilization and Martians are eternal themes. Interestingly, the search for life on Mars was also the initial driving force for Mars exploration, prompting the Soviet Union and the United States to invest a lot of resources in Mars exploration missions at the beginning of the space age.

Today, foreign missions such as the Mars Express, Phoenix, Spirit, Opportunity, and Curiosity have repeatedly discovered life-supporting elements such as water, methane, and carbon-containing organic molecules on the surface of Mars. Blueberry-shaped stones and pebbles, remains of ancient river deltas, and underground liquid sediments (similar to underground lakes) in the south pole of Mars have been discovered one after another, confirming that there were traces of a large amount of liquid water on Mars. Even from time to time, researchers have said that suspected ancient life remains have been found on Martian meteorites collected on Earth.

With the advancement of space technology, the new generation of Mars probes are equipped with more advanced instruments, which are revealing more evidence on the surface of Mars to support the existence of life on Mars. According to the existing mission plan, the important mission of the European Space Agency's Rosalind Franklin Mars rover is to dig Martian soil samples 2 meters deep underground to find potential traces of microorganisms. The rover is named after the British female scientist who discovered the structure of DNA molecules in the early years, which shows the expectations of the scientific community for it.

The launch of ESA's Rosalind Franklin rover to Mars has been delayed several times. (Photo credit: ESA)

From another perspective, even if the detection of life on Mars ends in failure, human understanding of the Martian environment will be greatly deepened, which will be conducive to the future partial transformation of Mars and support manned Mars landing activities.

Sampling returns to the front

Historically, Mars exploration has gone through a process of evolution from flyby, orbit, landing, and patrol missions, especially the landing and patrol missions that directly reach the surface of Mars, which has greatly enriched human knowledge of Mars. The US Curiosity and Perseverance Mars rovers even carry lasers and long-distance chemical composition analysis instruments, which can conduct in-depth research on rock samples that scientists are interested in.

Schematic diagram of the Mars sample return plan released by the US media.

However, although such advanced detection methods can significantly improve the research capabilities of Martian samples, laser shock and evaporation will inevitably damage the samples, which may cause the research to be "inaccurate". In addition, the research instruments carried by the Mars rover are highly integrated and miniaturized, and it is difficult to achieve the detection accuracy of the level in the Earth laboratory. In actual operation, the Mars rover also needs to invest a lot of resources to ensure its own movement and communication, and the resource allocation for a certain experiment is extremely limited, which seriously limits the scientific research results.

Therefore, all major space powers have made returning samples from Mars an important goal for the next stage. For example, the US Perseverance rover has collected and sealed multiple tubes of samples and dropped them on the surface of Mars. In the future, new Western Mars landers, rovers, and Mars drones will work closely together to launch samples from the surface of Mars to orbit around Mars, rendezvous and dock in orbit, and transfer from Mars to Earth. Through a series of complex space missions, they will strive to return Mars samples to Earth laboratories in 2033. my country has also made it clear that it will carry out a Mars sample return mission around 2030.

If researchers believe that returning samples from Mars in the short term is too difficult, there is still a second-best option - Mars' satellites.

Phobos and Deimos are believed to have preserved a large number of ancient evolutionary fragments of the Martian system. Studying them will help to reveal the long history of the Martian system. For example, the origin of these two satellites has been controversial in the scientific community. Some believe that they were "captured" from the solar system by the gravity of Mars. Others believe that Mars was hit and a large amount of matter was thrown into space, and some of the remnants formed these two satellites.

Both satellites are very small. The larger one, Phobos, has an average radius of only 11.2 kilometers and its own gravitational field is extremely weak, so the difficulty of the sample return mission is significantly lower than that on the surface of Mars.

Because of this, the Soviet Union/Russia invested massive resources in the exploration of Martian satellites. Despite the unfortunate failure of multiple sample return missions, the Phobos mission remains the focus of Russia's Mars research.

At the same time, more aerospace forces are targeting these two satellites. For example, Japan, which has made great achievements in the field of asteroid sampling and return, has launched the Phobos sampling and return and Deimos flyby exploration programs. Based on the successful experience of Hayabusa 1 and Hayabusa 2, scientists have high expectations for this. In addition, the Canadian Space Agency plans to launch Phobos reconnaissance and international Mars exploration missions through cooperation with commercial aerospace forces, striving to deepen the understanding of Martian satellites.

Revealing history to benefit mankind

There is no doubt that after the success of the Mars sample return mission, with the help of large-scale laboratories and professional equipment on Earth, human research efficiency on Mars samples will far exceed that of the Mars rover, which provides the possibility of further revealing the evolutionary history of Mars.

In fact, studying the evolution of Mars plays an irreplaceable role in deepening human understanding of the Earth. More and more studies have shown that Mars once had a large amount of surface water, dense air and a certain amount of organic matter, but now it has become a desolate planet. In particular, the magnetic field has almost disappeared, causing the entire planet to lose its protection, water and atmosphere to quickly disappear, and it is no longer possible to nurture complex life.

In recent years, foreign missions such as MAVEN "Atmosphere Expert", ExoMars/TGO Trace Gas Detector, and Insight Lander have focused on the evolutionary history of Mars, from high-altitude atmospheric analysis to geological core research, striving to fully reveal the scientific secrets behind the current status of Mars.

Looking to the future, more advanced detectors, more sophisticated instruments, and more powerful communication capabilities will significantly improve the quality and quantity of data collected on Mars, and find more clues from the details. For example, the European Space Agency's ExoMars series will be equipped with more advanced trace gas and organic detectors, underground radars and other equipment to reveal the secrets of Mars in three dimensions, and then conduct in-depth research on Earth with similar conditions.

As the ancients said, it is impossible for human beings to live in the "cradle" of the Earth forever. After having a relatively comprehensive understanding of the Martian environment and evolution laws, landing humans on Mars and establishing a "Mars home" can be regarded as the ambitious goal of Mars exploration and will surely become an immortal milestone in human space history.

However, based on the current technical level of space propulsion systems, space transportation systems, space radiation protection and life support systems, manned landing on Mars still faces many difficulties. For example, the long mission time will inevitably lead to a large system scale, which will pose many risks to engineering and technical safety and the physical and mental health of astronauts.

Therefore, if manned Mars landing is to become a reality, many revolutionary advances need to be made. It is necessary to make comprehensive breakthroughs in engineering technology represented by aerospace technology, theoretical science represented by planetary science, and humanities represented by organizational sociology.

Specifically, from the research and development of heavy-duty rockets and new concept space propulsion to Martian soil simulation, from the upgrade of Mars landing technology to the progress of space medicine, from the selection and optimization of astronauts to psychological research in long-term isolation environments, the technologies that need to be broken through almost involve the cutting-edge fields of all contemporary disciplines.

Faced with complex demands and arduous tasks, the development model of aerospace science and technology is likely to change. It is necessary not only to concentrate core resources and overcome key problems, but also to actively guide and integrate high-quality resources from all walks of life in the whole society to jointly promote the great cause.

It must be admitted that the current technology is still far from manned landing on Mars, but the international space community is taking it as a clear development goal and making solid progress. Perhaps by the middle of the 21st century, humans will be able to land on Mars and achieve the great transformation from "Earth species" to "interplanetary species." (Author: Schwarzschild)