Mars missions perform first course corrections on their journey to the red planet

Three robotic missions to Mars launched from Earth last month have begun to refine their trajectories through the solar system with the first in a series of mid-term corrections to target the Red Planet for an arrival next February.

NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover launched from Cape Canaveral on July 30, following successful launches with the UAE’s Hope Orbiter on July 19 and China’s Tianwen Mission March 1 on July 23.

The missions were launched over a period of several weeks when Earth and Mars were in the correct positions in their orbits around the sun to allow a direct route between the planets. All three spacecraft are expected to arrive on Mars in February 2021.

NASA said on August 14 that the Mars 2020 mission’s first course correction maneuver, or TCM, was successful. The spacecraft fired eight thrusters to adjust its course to Mars, beginning to move the probe’s initial post-launch aiming point on the Red Planet.

The mission’s Atlas 5 launcher intentionally launched the Mars 2020 spacecraft on a path that would miss Mars, ensuring that the rocket’s upper stage did not crash into the Red Planet.

On Wednesday, the Perseverance rover locked in the aeroshell of the Mars 2020 spacecraft had traveled more than 35 million miles, or 56 million kilometers, since taking off from Florida’s Space Coast on July 30.

Mars 2020 mission planners set aside time and thruster for five course correction maneuvers to refine the spacecraft’s trajectory to Mars and configure the rover to target a precise landing at Jezero Crater, a basin of impact that once housed a liquid water lake with a river. flowing in it.

The nuclear-powered Perseverance rover will explore the crater, looking for signs of ancient life while collecting rock core samples for return to Earth on a future mission.

In addition to the five scheduled course correction burns, Mars 2020 mission officials have the option of commanding the spacecraft to perform backup or emergency maneuvers if necessary.

The next course correction burns for March 2020 are scheduled for September 30, December 18, February 10 and February 16. This will set the stage for the Perseverance rover to land on Mars on February 18.

China’s Tianwen 1 mission completed its first course correction after launch on August 1 (GMT), according to China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency.

The spacecraft fired its main engine for 20 seconds in the first of several planned maneuvers during the trip to Mars. The maneuver also served as a test of the probe’s main motor, which performed well during the burn, Chinese officials said.

Tianwen 1 launched on July 23 aboard a heavy Long March 5 rocket. This ambitious mission will become China’s first to reach Mars and will include an orbiter, lander and rover.

The spacecraft is expected to orbit Mars in February – using a long engine burn – and the orbiter will monitor candidate landing sites for two to three months before releasing the lander and rover to enter the Martian atmosphere.

If China achieves these feats as planned, it will make China the third country to perform a soft landing on Mars – after the Soviet Union and the United States – and the second country to drive a robotic robot on the Red Planet. .

NASA has landed the only successful rovers on Mars to date.

The UAE’s Hope Mars orbiter also successfully performed its first interplanetary heading correction maneuver, mission officials said on August 17.

In a tweet, officials described the event as a “major milestone” in the journey to Mars. It was the first shot of the spacecraft’s six largest thrusters since the orbiter launched on July 19 on a Japanese H-2A rocket.

Like NASA’s Mars 2020 mission and China’s Tianwen 1 spacecraft, the UAE’s Hope Orbiter will arrive on Mars in February.

Funded and led by the United Arab Emirates – and developed in partnership with American scientists – the Hope Mars probe carries a digital camera to image the Martian surface, dust storms and ice clouds, and spectrometers to measure constituents at several levels of the planet’s atmosphere.

The Hope mission is the first interplanetary probe in the Arab world.

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Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @ StephenClark1.