#CountdownToMars: Excitement runs high among the space community as February celebrates the Red Planet

MARS has got visitors this month.

The orbiters and rovers launched by the UAE, China and the USA’s NASA in July 2020 are expected to enter orbit and/or land on the Red Planet, after travelling more than 400 million kilometres from Earth.

UAE's HOPE PROBE

On February 9, the Arab world is set to make history with its maiden Emirates Mars Mission as their Hope probe is expected to enter Mars orbit. UAE's Hope probe mission, led by the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre, was launched at the Tanegashima Space Centre in Japan last year in collaboration with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and American universities.

The Hope probe which is an orbiter (a spacecraft that is designed to orbit a celestial body without making a landing on its surface) is equipped with three main scientific instruments – the Emirates Mars Infrared Spectrometer (EMIRS), Emirates Exploration Imager (EXI) and Emirates Mars Ultraviolet Spectrometer (EMUS).

These state-of-the-art instruments were designed to study the various aspects of the atmosphere in Mars for one Martian year, equivalent to two years on Earth.

CHINA'S TIANWEN-1

A day after the Hope probe enters orbit, Tianwen-1 is expected to arrive on February 10. The China National Space Administration (CNSA) had on February 5 released the first snapshot of the Red Planet captured by the orbiter at a distance of about 2.2 million kilometers from Mars.

Tianwen-1’s entry into orbit will mark China’s first successful Mars Mission.

Meanwhile, its rover is expected to land in May. In a statement, CNSA said, "The spacecraft has already made four midcourse corrections and a deep-space orbital manoeuvre. The mission's ultimate goal is to soft-land a rover in May on the southern part of Mars' Utopia Planitia – a large plain within Utopia, the largest recognized impact basin in the solar system – to conduct scientific surveys."

NASA'S PERSEVERANCE

While UAE and China are visiting Mars for the first time, NASA's Perseverance is expected to become America's 15th Mars visit when it touches down on February 18.

The Perseverance rover carrying the Ingenuity helicopter drone will be looking for ancient life signs and hopefully to collect rock and regolith (broken rock and soil) samples to bring them back to Earth for further analysis.

This Mars Mission by NASA is scheduled to run for at least one Mars year (approximately 687 days on Earth).

"Globally, people are eagerly waiting for NASA's Perseverance landing on the 18th this month. The excitement is really high," said Hafez Murtza, the founder of Apadilangit, an astronomy and space science outreach organisation.

"February will also see the Moon-Mars conjunction on the 19th. This is an astronomical event where two celestial bodies are in close range where we can observe the characteristics of the bodies closer," Apadilangit cofounder, Amirul Hazim added.

In conjunction with the Mars Exploration Month, Apadilangit has lined up various activities from online camps and virtual Q&A sessions to science fiction movie reviews, for students, teachers and the general public to obtain insights on the three national space missions to Mars.

And in upholding the true spirit of ‘Space for all’, Apadilangit also has an ‘AstroInclusive’ session to cater to the special needs community such as the visually challenged.

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* Sathesh Raj is a regular contributor at www.astroawani.com and is into all things nature and science.