Space race to Mars: US, China & UAE plan to explore Earth's closest neighbour in July

Three countries—United Arab Emirates, China and the United States—are all competing in a race to land a space probe on Mars. According to reports, all three countries will be trying to take advantage of the period of time when Mars and Earth will be closest to each other, roughly 55 million kilometres (34 million miles) apart.

Three-way race to the Red Planet

As per reports, this opportunity to launch a mission to Mars only comes once in 26 months given the speed and trajectory at which both planets revolve around the Sun. All the space agencies plan to launch their space mission in an attempt to search for past life, as well as study the planet and pave the way for humans to step on the Red Planet.

The three mission are the Hope Probe by the UAE, the Tianwen-1 by China and the Mars 2020 by the United States that will be carrying the Mars rover Perseverance. This will be the United States' fifth expletory vehicle to be sent to Mars; the name for the probe was decided by an online vote. The Perseverance will spend one Mars year, which is 687 Earth days, on the surface and collect data as well as samples, the goal of future missions will be to retrieve those collected samples. The Hope Probe by the UAE will be the first interplanetary mission launched by an Arab country while China plans to launch a small remote-controlled rover.

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According to reports, a fourth mission was supposed to be launched by the EU and Russia, but the launch was postponed till 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

(Image Credit Twitter/ @Dr_ThomasZ)

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