Three Countries Will Attempt Mars Landings in 2021

Humanity has always been fascinated with Mars. Over the decades, the red planet has found mentions in every aspect of human storytelling, including myths, religion, literature, and cinema. It has come to symbolise everything from desires and sex to warfare. It has also long been a destination for many bustling explorations, with space missions from the U.S., Russia, Europe, and India having entered the planet’s orbit—the first two even having managed successful landings on its surface.

2020 was a big year, as the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.), China and the U.S. all launched robotic missions to Mars, lured by shortened voyages during the period every two years when Earth is closest to the red planet. 

“It’s a really interesting time in Mars exploration,” Emily Lakdawalla, a solar system expert and science author, had said in a VICE News interview. “What’s being sent to Mars now is kind of the next step,” she had added, also alluding to NASA’s intent to “begin the process of getting samples back to Earth.”

Now in 2021, these new players seek to enter the space by making the planet the object of their fancy. U.A.E.’s Hope Probe, China’s Tianwen-1 and NASA's Perseverance rover will be arriving on Mars this year, all seeking to achieve different goals from their Martian expeditions.

The first to land will be the Hope orbiter, which will enter Mars’ orbit on February 9 with an altitude as low as a thousand kilometers above the planet. If it succeeds in making the ambitious landing, it will study the atmosphere and weather conditions on the planet for a Martian year, or 687 Earth days, and send valuable information back to scientists.

The Hope Probe will be succeeded by China’s Tianwen-1 which translates to “Quest for Heavenly Truth”, arriving on February 10, the next Earth day. After orbiting the planet for some time, it will send a lander containing a rover to the surface in May, which will be landing in the Utopia Planitia region of the planet. This will be the country’s first mission to Mars, making China the second country after the U.S. to attempt a soft landing on Mars. Landing in one piece on the red planet is not the easiest of feats, and only NASA has managed to do it more than once.

A successful landing will further China’s achievements in space, especially after 2020’s Chang'e-5 mission where China reached for the moon, and got it, in the form of moon rocks and soil off the surface. The Tianwen-1 mission will seek to study the Martian soil, geological structure, environment, atmosphere, and also search for signs of water on the moon. In the event of the mission being successful, China would achieve a technical breakthrough, as predicted by its own scientists in an article published last year.

On February 18, NASA’s Perseverance Probe will seek to land at the Jezero crater on Mars, where it will seek signs of extinct life in the dried-out crater lake riverbed.The spacecraft carrying the rover was successfully launched in July 2020 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. According to the American space agency, the rover will be the first in history to carry samples of another planet back to Earth.

But first, it will deploy Ingenuity, a small helicopter, which will pursue its own mission of being the first aircraft to attempt controlled flight on another planet.

While Mars is looking like the most coveted destination for a space odyssey in 2021, this astronomically busy year will also see humanity attempting to probe deeper into deep space with the launch of NASA’s James Webb Telescope (JWST). The successor to the celebrated Hubble telescope has faced many obstacles in the past, including mounting costs and technical difficulties, not to mention the wretched pandemic. But after having been delayed for years, it is finally set to see the light of day at the end of October. The JWST or Webb will be a large infrared telescope with a 6.5-meter primary mirror and will be launched on an Ariane 5 rocket from French Guiana in 2021. The telescope will have a one-of-its-kind observatory that will assist thousands of astronomers worldwide in their studies of space.

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