Four upcoming Mars missions

[lpetrich]

Every two years or so, a launch window opens up for going to Mars. This window is for doing a Hohmann minimum-energy transfer orbit. This is the orbit that requires the smallest amount of velocity change (delta-V) at each end of the trip. This kind of orbit was described by a certain Walter Hohmann back in 1925, nearly a century ago, in a book called "The Attainability of Celestial Bodies" ("Die Erreichbarkeit der Himmelskörper") --  Hohmann transfer orbit.

This kind of orbit is an elliptical orbit with its closest point at the Earth's orbit and its farthest point at Mars's orbit. Using the planets' mean distances, a trip to Mars takes about 8 1/2 months. A launch window recurs every 2 years 1 1/2 months.

So far, spacecraft have been launched to Mars on 2/3 of the available launch windows since the first spacecraft to Mars in 1962. This year, no less than four spacecraft will be sent to that planet in the upcoming window this summer. They are:

Mars 2020 rover (NASA)
 Mars 2020
(official name not yet selected)

Launch: 17 July to 5 August 2020
Landing: 18 February 2021
Site: Jezero crater

Kazachok lander and Rosalind Franklin rover (ESA: ExoMars mission)
 Kazachok,  Rosalind Franklin (rover)

Launch: 25 July 2020
Landing: March 2021
Site: Oxia Planum

Emirates/Hope Mars Mission orbiter
 Hope Mars Mission

Launch: July 2020
Orbit Insertion: 2021

Huoxing-1 orbiter, lander, rover (China Mars 2020)
 Mars Global Remote Sensing Orbiter and Small Rover

Launch: July 2020
Orbit insertion: February 11 to February 24, 2021
Landing: April 23, 2021

 

[lpetrich]

Virginia Student Earns Honor of Naming NASA's Next Mars Rover | NASA - Perseverance

The name was announced Thursday by Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate, during a celebration at Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, Virginia. Zurbuchen was at the school to congratulate seventh grader Alexander Mather, who submitted the winning entry to the agency’s "Name the Rover" essay contest, which received 28,000 entries from K-12 students from every U.S. state and territory.

"Alex’s entry captured the spirit of exploration,” said Zurbuchen. “Like every exploration mission before, our rover is going to face challenges, and it’s going to make amazing discoveries. It’s already surmounted many obstacles to get us to the point where we are today – processing for launch. Alex and his classmates are the Artemis Generation, and they’re going to be taking the next steps into space that lead to Mars. That inspiring work will always require perseverance. We can’t wait to see that nameplate on Mars.”

 

[lpetrich]

The NASA chopper set to be first aircraft to fly on Mars now has a name -- thanks to a 17-year-old girl - CNN
notes
NASA on Twitter: "Our Mars helicopter has a new name! Meet: Ingenuity.
Student Vaneeza Rupani came up with the name during our “name the rover” contest. Ingenuity will ride to the Red Planet with @NASAPersevere to attempt the first powered flight on another world: (links)" / Twitter

Alabama High School Student Names NASA's Mars Helicopter | NASA

"The ingenuity and brilliance of people working hard to overcome the challenges of interplanetary travel are what allow us all to experience the wonders of space exploration," Rupani wrote in her essay, according to a news release by NASA. "Ingenuity is what allows people to accomplish amazing things, and it allows us to expand our horizons to the edges of the universe," it said.

Q&A with the Student Who Named Ingenuity, NASA's Mars Helicopter | NASA

Why do you think "Ingenuity" would be a good name for the helicopter?

Ingenuity would be a good name for the helicopter because that is exactly what it took to design this machine. The challenges faced trying to design something capable of flight on another planet can only be overcome with collaboration and creativity. It takes the ingenuity of an incredible group of people to create something with so many complex challenges.

Mars Perseverance Rover | NASA - still on track to be launched this upcoming July

 

[lpetrich]

Map of Every Mars Landing Attempt, Ever | The Planetary Society

It’s almost Mars launch season again! Once every 26 months, as Earth runs on its inside track around the Sun, physics favors launches from our planet toward Mars. There are 3 Mars-bound missions that plan to launch in July, and 2 of them hope to land. (The one that won’t land is just named Hope.) NASA will be launching the Perseverance rover, and China its Tianwen-1 orbiter and rover. There was to have been a 3rd rover launching this summer, but the European Space Agency had to delay Rosalind Franklin and Kazachok’s mission until the next opportunity comes around in 2022.

 

[lpetrich]

Mars 2020 was successfully launched on July 30 atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas-Centaur rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, US.

NASA, ULA Launch Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover Mission to Red Planet – NASA’s Mars Exploration Program

Atlas V Mars 2020 Rocket Cam - YouTube - I like rocketcam views.

Perseverance, the Mars 2020 lander, will land in Jezero Crater. That feature's name is from the word for lake in some Slavic languages, and its name is pronounced "Yezero", though English speakers might prefer "Dzhezero". It was named that after the discovery of evidence of sediment deposited by a river that once poured into it, making it a lake.

The Emirates Mars Mission, with its Amal ("Hope") Mars orbiter was successfully launched on July 19 atop a Mitsubishi H-IIA rocket from the Tanegashima Space Center on Tanegashima Island at the southern end of Japan.

Hope Mars Mission Launch - YouTube

That spacecraft will observe Mars's atmosphere, and help us better understand how it behaves and the loss of much of it into outer space.

Tianwen-1 was successfully launched on July 23 atop a Long March 5 rocket from the Wenchang Launch Site on Hainan Island off the southeastern coast of mainland China.

Tianwen-1 launch - YouTube ("Heavenly Questions", the name of a long poem written some 2300 years ago that starts with asking how the Universe was created)

It has an orbiter, a lander, and a rover.

All three spacecraft should arrive on Mars in February 2021.

The fourth mission, the ESA ExoMars one, has been postponed from 2020 to 2022, the next available minimum-energy launch opportunity, because of problems with the parachutes.