MARS MISSION - SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
News: Red
Planet Day: The many missions that brought humans closer to Mars
What's in the news?
● Commemorating
the day one of the most significant space missions to Mars was launched, November 28 is marked as Red Planet Day.
● On
this day in 1964, the United States launched the space probe Mariner 4 on a
course towards Mars, which it flew past in July 1965, sending back pictures of
the red planet.
Key takeaways:
● November
28, 1964 - This was the first time that a spacecraft undertook the first flyby
of the red planet, becoming the first-ever spacecraft to take close-up
photographs of another planet.
● Subsequently,
considerable interest has been sparked around Mars, and missions have been
launched, to the point that at present, the idea of settling a colony of humans
on Mars (as suggested enthusiastically by billionaire Elon Musk) has also been
put forth.
NASA's Missions:
1. Mariner 4 - 1964:
● After
an eight-month voyage to Mars, the Mariner 4 helped humans see images showing
lunar-type impact craters, some of them touched with frost.
● A
television camera onboard took 22 pictures, covering about 1% of the planet.
● These
photos were transmitted to Earth in four days.
2. Viking Mission - 1970s:
● The
Viking missions in the mid-seventies carried out the first chemical analysis of
Martian soil, as well as four biology experiments to detect biological
activity.
3. Odyssey, 2001 and water on Mars:
● In
2001, the Gamma Ray Spectrometer on
board the Mars Odyssey spacecraft detected a fascinating hydrogen signature
that seemed to indicate the presence of water ice.
● But
there was ambiguity – this was because hydrogen can be part of many other
compounds as well.
4. Phoenix Mission:
● NASA’s
Phoenix landed on the Martian North Pole
in May 2008, and survived for about 150 days.
● The
robotic arms of Phoenix scooped soil and ice from the surface, heated the
material in eight ovens, and measured the composition of the gases with a mass
spectrometer.
● The
Phoenix mission established conclusively that the initial discovery of hydrogen
by Mars Odyssey in 2002 was indeed water ice.
5. Perseverance - Rover
6. Mars Insight -
Lander
7. Curiosity - Rover
8. Mars Reconnaissance - Orbiter
9. Mars Odyssey - Orbiter
10. MAVEN - Orbiter
Other Countries Mission to Mars:
● India - Mangalyaan-1
Orbiter
● Europe - Mars
Express and ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter
● UAE - Hope
Orbiter
● China - Tianwen
Orbiter.