Six major international legions compete for Mars. Who is being held back by the COVID-19 pandemic?

Interview experts:

Ouyang Ziyuan (Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences)

Pang Zhihao (Chief Scientific Communication Expert of National Space Exploration Technology)

According to the plans previously announced by various countries, human exploration of Mars will usher in a window period of about two years from July to August 2020, and four space probes will fly to the red planet.

▲According to the original plan, four space probes will fly to the red planet (Picture from NASA)

However, the sudden outbreak of the new coronavirus pandemic not only disrupted everyone's lives, but also cast a shadow on Mars exploration.

The European Space Agency (ESA) and the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) announced on March 12 that the launch of the Mars Exploration (ExoMars) mission will be postponed to 2022. If there are no new changes, they will go to Mars in the next window in two years.

The good news is that the original plans of China, the United States and the UAE continue.

Due to the severe spread of the new coronavirus epidemic in the United States, many people doubt whether the United States’ Mars launch mission this year can proceed smoothly. On April 15, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) stated that the 2020 Mars Rover Project’s probe "Perseverance" will still be launched as planned in mid-July and is one of the agency’s highest priority missions during the epidemic.

As a "newcomer" in the aerospace industry, the UAE is also ambitious in Mars exploration. Earlier this year, the United Arab Emirates completed the construction of the "Hope" unmanned Mars probe and is preparing for its launch in July.

In 2019, many people in the aerospace industry believed that in 2020, Mars would be the main battlefield for multiple countries to compete in space, and it would also be a very important year for human exploration of Mars. Now that the COVID-19 pandemic is spreading around the world, will the year of Mars still be a good year for human beings?

Not only China, but also traditional space forces such as the United States, ESA and Russia have formulated ambitious Mars exploration plans, and even new forces such as the United Arab Emirates have joined in. Therefore, many Mars fans believe that Mars exploration in 2020 will be a great success. However, due to some technical problems and the impact of the new coronavirus epidemic, the 2020 Human Mars Year will not be as lively as previously expected.

The United States' "Mars 2020" aims to achieve Mars sample retrieval

According to the plan, NASA will launch a Mars rover from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida between July 17 and August 5, 2020. The US Mars 2020 launch mission includes an orbiter, an unmanned helicopter and an all-around Mars rover, Perseverance, and the entire project is expected to cost $2.4 billion.

▲US Mars exploration mission (Photo from Xinhua News Agency)

According to information NASA has publicly displayed to the media, Perseverance is expected to land in the Jezero Crater on Mars in February 2021 to look for signs that life may have existed on the red planet, explore the climate and geological features of Mars, and collect samples. This will also be the first spacecraft in the history of planetary exploration that has the ability to accurately redirect the landing point during the landing sequence.

Perseverance is a nuclear-powered Mars rover. The rover's landing system has been verified, and the energy supply and temperature maintenance of the rover's mobile exploration have been guaranteed. Thomas Zobuchen, deputy administrator of NASA's Science Mission Office, revealed that the multi-mission radioisotope thermoelectric generator carried by the rover can not only provide energy for the rover, but also help it maintain temperature when exploring the red planet.

▲Structure diagram of the US "Perseverance" Mars rover (picture from NASA)

Pang Zhihao, chief scientific communication expert of national space exploration technology, told reporters that the United States has accumulated some experience in Mars exploration. Since 1975, the United States has successfully carried out seven landing explorations on the surface of Mars, not only achieving a safe landing on the surface of Mars, but also making great progress and breakthroughs in mobile exploration, fully verifying their Mars exploration technology and capabilities.

However, in order to minimize flight costs and risks, the design of Perseverance is still based on NASA's successful Mars Science Laboratory mission architecture, including the Curiosity rover and a proven landing system.

In February 2017, scientists conducting the US Mars exploration program narrowed down the potential landing sites for the Mars 2020 mission from eight to three. These three places represent different environments that may have given birth to primitive life: an ancient lake bed called Jezero Crater, the Northeast Quicksand Belt (where warm waters may have chemical reactions with underground rocks), and the Columbia Hills (where there may be hot springs).

▲US Mars exploration roadmap for 2020 (Image from NASA)

The official website of Science magazine reported in mid-May 2017 that the first two sites are close to ancient volcanic rocks, which will help to carry out another important task at the same time - collecting Martian samples; and the Columbia Hills have been explored by the Spirit Mars rover.

Unlike previous Mars exploration missions such as Curiosity, the new nuclear-powered Perseverance rover will collect rock samples and store them in sealed cans on the surface of Mars. This means that the collected samples will not be returned to Earth in 2021.

According to NASA's plan, another mission carried out in cooperation with the European Space Agency in 2026 will be launched on the basis of Mars 2020. They will launch two more probes and arrive on Mars in 2028, when the samples will be transported to the rocket ready to return to Earth with the help of European-made robotic vehicles.

This complete mission, called "Mars Sample Retrieval," is also a time-consuming project that is expected to be completed around 2031. After the samples are returned to the laboratory on Earth, researchers can conduct in-depth analysis and research on them to determine whether life has ever existed on Mars, and whether the environment on Mars poses a threat to future human operations.

Information released by NASA shows that the United States will send astronauts to land on Mars in 2033. If its preliminary exploration goes smoothly, the United States will likely become the first country in human history to send astronauts to Mars after sending them to the moon.

Parachute failure? COVID-19? ExoMars withdraws from 2020 Mars season

Pang Zhihao said that ESA has not been very successful in its journey to explore Mars in recent years. Its largest planetary exploration mission in Europe's history, the "ExoMars" program jointly carried out with Russia, has suffered repeated setbacks in the past 20 years. New challenges and problems have continued to emerge, and the testing of some projects has also been plagued by frequent failures. The cost has increased from hundreds of millions of euros to more than 1 billion euros.

In 2016, delivery of key equipment for the program was delayed, forcing ESA to push back the launch from 2018 to 2020.

▲ExoMars plans to launch the rover during the Mars window period from August to October 2022 and arrive on Mars between April and July 2023 (Image from ESA)

The ExoMars mission was originally a cooperative project between ESA and NASA. However, due to NASA's budget constraints, the United States was forced to withdraw from the cooperation in 2012 and no longer provided the Atlas rocket for launch. After that, ESA asked Russia to provide a launch vehicle, but Russia proposed that it hoped to fully participate in the implementation of the project. So, ESA and Russia finally came together.

▲The ExoMars mission is similar to my country's Mars mission, both of which include an orbiter, a lander and a rover (picture from ESA)

On December 29, 2019, the Spanish newspaper El Mundo published an article by Rafael Bachiller, director of the Spanish National Observatory, revealing that the European Space Agency and the Russian State Space Corporation will jointly launch the Mars rover "Rosalind Franklin". The rover was made in the United Kingdom and named after Rosalind Franklin, a pioneer in DNA research. It will be launched from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, on a Russian rocket, land on a Russian-made landing platform, and conduct exploration on the surface of Mars for at least 7 months. It will use a drill that can drill to a depth of 2 meters below the surface to extract material that has not been exposed to strong radiation. Scientists believe that this material may contain evidence that there was life on Mars. By analyzing the collected soil samples, they can look for biological molecules or biomarkers that can prove the existence of life.

The "Mars Astrobiology" program is divided into two phases. In 2016, the "Trace Gas Orbiter" carrying two Russian-made instruments was launched under the framework of the first phase and successfully entered a working orbit of about 400 kilometers around Mars. The scientific instruments carried by the "Trace Gas Orbiter" mainly detect various gases in the Martian atmosphere, such as methane, water vapor, nitrogen dioxide and acetylene, and then determine the distribution areas and sources of these gases, and look for signs of life that exists or has existed. These areas will also be one of the best landing sites for future Mars programs. The Schiaparelli lander launched within the framework of the first phase crashed during landing. The second phase, scheduled to start in 2020, is the main phase.

▲Schematic diagram of the two sets of parachutes planned for ExoMars (picture from ESA)

Unfortunately, the program discovered some serious problems with the parachute system during testing in 2019. Although engineers made multiple adjustments, the parachute still did not achieve the expected effect, and the probe was damaged during landing. So ESA urgently asked NASA's aerospace engineers for help to save the badly damaged mission.

Although the Mars Space Biology program team has now solved some of the vexing technical problems, they have postponed the launch plan to 2022 for safety reasons.

According to Nature, the reasons for the delayed launch still include a series of technical problems: the software of the spacecraft carrying the probe still needs to be debugged, the main parachute test of the probe has not been completed, and the solar panels cannot be fixed.

The global outbreak of the new coronavirus is also a major disruptive factor. In particular, the epidemic situation in Europe makes it difficult for Russian experts to travel to the locations of their partners, and the original work progress has been greatly affected.

If the launch is insisted on this year amid the epidemic, the "Mars Space Biology" program will need to sacrifice some necessary tests, and ESA does not want to take the risk.

"We cannot take shortcuts and this decision has been a difficult one to make, but we are confident it is the right thing to do," said ESA Director-General Jean Werner.

Whose lucky planet will be Mars?

"Many scientists are very worried about the future fate of mankind, because our Earth is facing too many natural threats. Coupled with some human behaviors, the Earth may be destroyed and become uninhabitable in the future. Therefore, we must find an object in the solar system to explore whether it can be turned into a second Earth so that humans can migrate to it in large numbers. At present, the only possible celestial body is Mars," said Ouyang Ziyuan, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

"So far, no evidence of life on Mars has been found. At international meetings, the biggest ideal for Mars is to transform it." Ouyang Ziyuan believes that through human wisdom and efforts, Mars can be transformed into a vibrant "small earth" and become the "second home" of mankind. Humans need to preserve themselves and other species on Earth.

▲Artists depict Mars, humanity’s “second home” (Photo courtesy of NASA)

The recent increase in Mars exploration activities is closely related to the possible existence of life on Mars. Existing exploration results show that the Martian atmosphere contains trace amounts of methane, and the methane content varies in different regions and at different times. Since methane is unlikely to exist for a long time in geological history, the detection of methane indicates that Mars may still be producing methane today, and some scientists believe this is evidence of the existence of organisms.

However, although methane is produced during biological digestion, other physical and chemical processes can also release methane gas, such as the oxidation of iron. Therefore, humans on Earth still do not know whether the methane in the Martian atmosphere comes from biological processes related to life or inorganic chemical reactions unrelated to life. To find out, the best way is to land on Mars and conduct exploration. Therefore, Mars has become an important exploration target for countries interested in space exploration.

As of 9:00 a.m. Beijing time on April 24, the United States has confirmed more than 870,000 cases of COVID-19 and 49,729 deaths, and the epidemic is still spreading.

It is for this reason that many people doubt whether the United States can successfully implement the 2020 Mars exploration plan. In a recent interview, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine reiterated the importance of the 2020 Mars plan, which is one of NASA's two most important projects (the other is the commercial manned spacecraft project). If the launch window of the 2020 Mars probe is missed, the more than 500 million US dollars spent in two years will be wasted.

▲The COVID-19 pandemic has not slowed down the pace of the US Mars exploration. The picture shows the Mars landing countdown board inside NASA (picture from NASA)

In addition to the United States, Russia, ESA and China, countries and organizations such as India and Japan have also made many moves in Mars exploration. India launched Asia's first Mars probe on November 5, 2013. However, there is no plan for India to explore Mars again in the near future. Japan is currently preparing to explore Phobos and Deimos, and the launch time is expected to be 2024.

In 2020, in addition to the two Mars exploration missions to be launched by China and the United States, the United Arab Emirates, a newcomer in Mars exploration, also plans to launch the "Hope" unmanned Mars probe in July, and their work has not been greatly disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. "Hope" was built by UAE engineers with the help of American experts and will be launched from the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan. It will arrive in Mars orbit in March 2021 and will capture images and spectra of the red planet to provide data for the study of Martian climate and seasonal cycles.

Mars exploration has never been an easy task. So far, humans have explored Mars 45 times, but only 18 of them were successful, with a success rate of only 40%. Who will be the lucky planet on Mars in 2020? It is still unknown.

TIPS: Six major contenders for future Mars exploration

Legion 1: ESA

In 2003, the European Space Agency (ESA) proposed the "Dawn Project", which established the development strategy and roadmap for Europe's solar system exploration in the next 30 years, and proposed to mainly use robots and manned landings on Mars to explore the signs of extraterrestrial life in the solar system and reveal the origin of the solar system. After detailed demonstration, ESA officially released the "Cosmic Vision 2005-2025" in 2005, which described the development blueprint of space science in the next 20 years and pointed out that Mars exploration is an important space science exploration activity that ESA will carry out in the next 10-20 years. In 2015, ESA announced the latest "Space Exploration Strategy", and Mars is still its key exploration target.

Legion 2: America

In 2004, the United States proposed the "New Space Plan" and started to build a new generation of spacecraft, with the main goal of sending humans to Mars around 2030. In 2011, NASA once again formulated a detailed "2013-2022 Planetary Science Ten-Year Plan and Outlook", which included the scientific goals, development plans and scientific exploration tasks of the United States' planetary exploration in the next ten years, made Mars exploration planning a top priority, and clearly defined the development goal of achieving manned landing on Mars in the 21st century 30s. On this basis, in 2015, NASA announced "NASA's Journey to Mars - The Next Step in Pioneering Space Exploration" on the development policy and strategic planning of Mars exploration, fully demonstrating the United States' determination to accelerate the pace of Mars exploration.

Legion Three: Russia

Although the Soviet Union and Russia, which mainly inherited the Soviet space exploration legacy, have not been successful in Mars exploration and have suffered from repeated failures, Russia has not given up its ambition to explore Mars. In March 2012, the Russian Federal Space Agency formulated and published the draft "Strategy for the Development of Russian Space Activities before 2030 and in the Future", which involves a series of goals such as the establishment of a Mars test station. In April 2012, it formulated the "General Plan for Solar System Exploration 2012-2025". Both plans list Mars as the primary exploration target. After the failure of the "David I-Soil" mission to detect and sample the Martian soil, in 2014, Russia re-proposed to change the Expedition M mission to return Mars soil samples to the "Phobos Surface Exploration and Soil Sampling Return" mission and included it in the 2015 fiscal budget, totaling about 5.1 billion rubles. The Expedition M probe is scheduled to be launched in 2024 using the Angara 5 rocket. The mission will prepare for the return of Mars samples in 2030.

Legion 4: China

Before 2030, the main tasks of China's Mars exploration are orbiting remote sensing exploration, soft landing patrol exploration and sample return, so as to realize the scientific progression of Mars from global survey to local detailed survey and then to sample laboratory analysis. The scientific goal of orbiting remote sensing exploration focuses on the global exploration of Mars and is committed to establishing an overall and global scientific concept of Mars; the scientific goal of soft landing patrol exploration focuses on the key exploration of local areas of Mars, mainly carrying out scientific experiments on Mars; the scientific goal of sample return focuses on the on-site investigation and analysis of the landing site, the analysis and research of Martian samples, and mainly carries out comparative planetary research.

China started its Mars exploration relatively late, but with the important progress made in the lunar exploration project, my country has the ability to conduct Mars exploration. Timely Mars exploration can accelerate the transformation from tracking research to independent innovation in the fields of space science, space technology and space applications, and realize the progress from a space power to a space power.

Legion Five: Japan

Japan's Mars exploration capabilities should not be ignored. In 2005, Japan formulated a 20-year space development roadmap, namely the "Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency Long-term Development Plan - JAXA2025", which proposed the development goals, development directions, development plans and ideas for space activities in the next 20 years. The plan points out that the focus of the next generation of solar system exploration is to achieve the flight of probes to Mars, focusing on detecting the Martian climate. The overall idea is to first establish a lunar base and use the moon as a transit station to go to Mars.

On July 3, 1998, Japan's first Mars probe, Hope, was launched into space, making Japan the third country in the world to launch a Mars probe. However, after five years of difficult flight in space, Hope was declared a failure on December 9, 2003.

However, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) recently stated that its "Mars Moons Exploration" (MMX) mission has been approved and officially entered the development stage. Its goal is to send an orbiter, a lander, and perhaps a rover to the Martian satellite in 2024. The collected sand, rocks and other samples are expected to be sent back to Earth in 2029.

Legion Six: India

In the field of space exploration, although India is a latecomer, its pace has accelerated significantly in recent years. In 2007, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) officially announced its Mars exploration plan. The plan was launched in August 2012, and its "Mangarian" Mars probe was launched on November 15, 2013. In September 2014, it successfully entered the orbit of Mars and carried out scientific exploration missions in an elliptical orbit of 500-80,000 kilometers. India has also become the first country in Asia to successfully conduct Mars exploration.

The success of Mangalyaan has greatly inspired India's ambition to explore Mars. ISRO has now started the demonstration work for the subsequent Mars exploration mission. Although it encountered a great setback in the failure of its lunar exploration not long ago, it will also be an important force in Mars exploration in the future. (Written by reporter Li Peng, graphic editor Chen Yongjie)

Produced by: Science Central Kitchen

Produced by: Beijing Science and Technology News | Science Plus Client

Reproduction without authorization is prohibited