• Hope.United Arab Emirates successfully launches first Arab mission to Mars
  • Rosalind Franklin. Europe postpones until 2022 its ExoMars mission to Mars due to a delay in the tests and the coronavirus
  • Meteorological station. 'Part of the time' on Mars is made with Spanish technology

You cannot go to Mars at any time. Or it should not be because if you take advantage of the moment in which the Earth and the red planet are at the shortest distance, the journey is reduced to six months. That period takes place approximately every two years, as now. And despite the restrictions caused by the coronavirus crisis, we are experiencing a true Martian summer. Three of the four planned missions have moved on with minor delays, and if all goes well, all three will arrive in February.

The summer of 2020 has already seen orbiting probes take off from the United Arab Emirates and China. Hope , from the Arab country, left Japan on July 19 while China's Tianwen-1 took off on July 23.

The European Space Agency (ESA) and the Russian agency Roscosmos were also planning to send in late July their brand new ExoMars2020 Rosalind Franklin , a robotic vehicle ( rover ) with a drill capable of drilling up to two meters deep to search for traces of life. However, a series of problems with parachutes whose resolution made the pandemic difficult led them to postpone it until 2022, when Mars and Earth will again be in a favorable situation to optimize the trip or, as the engineers say, until the next window of opportunity .

From Florida, the state most affected by the coronavirus in the United States - only on Monday it registered almost 9,000 new infections and 77 deaths - everything seems ready for takeoff of the most difficult Martian mission this year because this one will have to land on a planet it has almost no atmosphere . Although its start was scheduled for July 17, the detection during a test of a small leak in a fuel pipe caused NASA to postpone until July 30 the launch of its Mars2020 Perseverance rover which, following in the footsteps of Curiosity - working on Mars since 2012 and still in shape - will explore this hostile world, look for evidence that microbial life existed in the past, and take soil samples that another ship will collect to bring to Earth.

"NASA and ESA are working on the preliminary studies of a mission that would be launched no sooner than 2026 to collect these samples," said Spanish engineer Fernando Abilleira, deputy director of flight operations for Mars2020.

That is, at least, the future plan. The present plan is for you to make on-site measurements with your sophisticated instruments. The mission also includes a small helicopter called Ingenuity, which weighs 1.8 kilograms, carries a laser and two cameras, and is powered by solar energy. As Abilleira explains, "his objective will be to demonstrate that controlled flight with a motor is possible in the fine Martian atmosphere." If the test is successful, he adds, "it would allow us in future missions to explore caves, mountains and other places that are difficult to access or impossible for a rover or lander to reach ."

Among the instruments of the Perseverance rover , there is once again a weather station made in Spain . The third is carried by a NASA Martian robot.

The impact of the coronavirus

" The coronavirus has made it much more difficult for the last few activities in recent months but, luckily, it has not been disastrous . The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) [the NASA center that controls the rover] and NASA put together a crash plan to control the health crisis with essential human equipment, and it has been very contained. Still, there has been a significant economic impact and some slowness in some activities: the diagnosis and solution of the problem that arose a few weeks ago has taken longer than usual, precisely for that reason, "explains José Antonio Rodríguez Manfredi, scientist at the Center for Astrobiology (CAB / CSIC-INTA) and principal investigator of the Spanish meteorological station MEDA, which this year will miss the launch from Cape Canaveral.

NASA has canceled the face-to-face public events and has restricted the number of people and journalists who will attend to the maximum: "I was given the opportunity to go, as the principal investigator of an instrument, but later it was complicated due to the growing concern about the coronavirus that was He lives in Florida. He had to be quarantined there, confined in a hotel for several weeks and undergo serological tests, to which we must add the problems to return to Spain, so we will live from Madrid, at INTA, with a very public reduced but that allows us to enjoy it together, "says Rodríguez Manfredi.

Fernando Abilleira will experience the launch from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where NASA receives data on the state of the vehicle and orders are sent to control it. Since the pandemic began, he explains, most of the Mars2020 team worked remotely: "Today's technology, such as the ability to video conference, has helped the team continue to complete the work necessary to launch Perseverance this summer. I have missed the closest contact with colleagues but like the name Perseverance , the human race always perseveres to achieve its objectives, "says this engineer, who assures that for NASA" the first objective was always the health of the team. "

Fortunately, adds Rodríguez Manfredi, · when the coronavirus crisis erupted, all the systems were already integrated into the vehicle , the most important tests had been carried out and all the assembled systems had been moved to Florida. That has been our great fortune, that really what was left to do, as far as the rover was concerned, was very little. The activities most affected have been those of assembling the rocket, and it was there that ULA (the company in charge of launching) placed greater emphasis on controlling the crisis, despite the dramatic situation in Florida. "

A Spanish weather station

The Spanish meteorological station MEDA also suffered no delays: "It incorporates everything we have learned from the REMS stations (in the Curiosity rover ), and TWINS (in the InSight robot ) in the last 15 years and quite a few improvements compared to Curiosity's ," not only in electronics, which is much more efficient in terms of power consumption or computing power, but also in software , which is smarter and more autonomous. This is very important, since to know and study the meteorological and environmental environment well, great regularity in measurements is required, throughout days, seasons and even years, "says the engineer.

The different sensors that will record each of the environmental quantities have also been improved, according to Rodríguez Manfredi: " The station will focus in a special way on the study of Martian dust and other aerosols, such as ozone , but especially on dust because it is essential for understand what the dynamics of the atmosphere are like. It can also seriously affect the operation of other instruments in the vehicle, especially MOXIE, with which NASA wants to obtain oxygen from atmospheric CO2 , and which will be vital for future manned missions ", Rodríguez Manfredi explains.

In addition, he adds, "the fact that our three Spanish instruments are operating at the same time on Mars will allow us to combine and compare their measurements and would constitute the first meteorological network on another planet . It is certainly a mini-network , since the ideal would be to have thousands of seasons, like on Earth, but we have to start for something, "he explains.

Perseverance vs Curiosity

Perseverance incorporates other improvements over Curiosity : "It has different objectives than Curiosity, so it requires a different set of instruments. It weighs about 1,025 kilograms (126 kg. More than Curiosity ) and will take the next step in the search for more life. beyond Earth. Also habitable Martian environments but will also look for traces of past microbial life. To confirm the existence of past life, irrefutable evidence will be needed so the most promising samples will be stored for possible return by a future mission. On Earth, we have state-of-the-art laboratories that can make a definitive analysis, "says Abilleira

The launch is scheduled for this Thursday from 7:50 am, local time in Florida (13.50 in Spain) , with a launch window of two hours. If due to adverse weather or for any technical reason the take-off has to be postponed, NASA will be able to launch the ship until August 15, as the window of opportunity will remain open until then. Regardless of the day it takes off, it will reach Mars on February 18, 2021 .

In these moments when the world's priority is to combat the pandemic, Rodríguez Manfredi defends the importance of research, "whether on Mars, on Earth or in any field whatsoever. Research generates wealth, in addition to knowledge, by Of course. We've seen it in the past few months. " In the specific case of Mars, he points out, "in addition to the knowledge that we can extract and extrapolate to our Earth - we can understand Mars as a kind of laboratory to study how our Earth will evolve-, the technology that is developed for space reverts to society in a substantial way. Our conception of ourselves and the world has changed in recent decades, also thanks to space research, "reflects the CAB engineer. On the other hand, he adds, "neither should we ignore the motivational aspect in the new generations, through the fascination that this world of space creates in the youngest, and not so young as well."

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