Three robotic Mars missions launched from Earth last month have begun fine-tuning their trajectories through the solar system with the very first in a series mid-course corrections to take aim on the Red Earth for coming next February.
NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover launched from Cape Canaveral on July 30, after successful launchings with the United Arab Emirates' Hope orbiter July 19 and China's Tianwen 1 Mars assignment July 23.
The missions launched during a period of many weeks when Earth and Mars were in the right places in their orbits round the sun to allow a direct path between the planets. All three spacecraft are expected to arrive at Mars at February 2021. The spacecraft fired eight thrusters to adjust its path toward Mars, beginning to shift the probe's initial post-launch aim point on into the Red Planet.
The assignment's Atlas 5 launcher intentionally introduced the Mars 2020 spacecraft on a path that would miss Mars, ensuring the rocket's upper stage wouldn't crash into the Red Earth.
At Wednesday, the Perseverance rover cocooned within the Mars 2020 spacecraft's aeroshell had logged over 35 million miles, or 56 million km, since blasting off from Florida's Space Coast on July 30.
Mars 2020 mission planners have put aside time and propellant for five trajectory correction maneuvers to refine the spacecraft's path toward Mars and prepare the rover to target a more precise landing at Jezero Crater, an effect basin that once harbored a lake of liquid water using a river flowing into it.
The nuclear-powered Perseverance rover will explore the crater, looking for signs of early life while collecting rock core samples for return to Earth with a future assignment.
Along with the five intended course correction burnsoff, Mars 2020 mission managers have opportunities to control the spacecraft to perform backup or contingency maneuvers if needed. That'll set the stage for the Perseverance rover's landing on Mars on Feb. 18.
The spacecraft fired its main engine for 20 minutes at the first of many maneuvers planned throughout the trip to Mars. The move also served as an evaluation of the probe's main engine, which performed well during the burn, Chinese officials said. The ambitious mission will become China's very first to reach Mars, and includes an orbiter, lander and rover.
If China brings off these feats according to plan, they'll make China the third country to execute a soft landing on Mars -- following the Soviet Union and the United States -- and the second country to drive a robotic rover on the Red Planet.
NASA has developed the sole powerful rovers on Mars to date.
The UAE's Hope Mars orbiter has also successfully executed its first interplanetary course correction maneuver, assignment officials announced Aug. 17.
At a tweet, officials described the occasion as a"major milestone" on the trip to Mars. It had been the first firing of the probe's six biggest thrusters since the orbiter's launching July 19 in addition to a Japanese H-2A rocket.
Funded and headed by the United Arab Emirates -- and developed in partnership with U.S. scientists -- the Hope Mars probe carries a digital camera to image the Martian surface, dust storms and ice clouds, and spectrometers to quantify elements at multiple levels of the planet's atmosphere.
NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover launched from Cape Canaveral on July 30, after successful launchings with the United Arab Emirates' Hope orbiter July 19 and China's Tianwen 1 Mars assignment July 23.
The missions launched during a period of many weeks when Earth and Mars were in the right places in their orbits round the sun to allow a direct path between the planets. All three spacecraft are expected to arrive at Mars at February 2021. The spacecraft fired eight thrusters to adjust its path toward Mars, beginning to shift the probe's initial post-launch aim point on into the Red Planet.
The assignment's Atlas 5 launcher intentionally introduced the Mars 2020 spacecraft on a path that would miss Mars, ensuring the rocket's upper stage wouldn't crash into the Red Earth.
At Wednesday, the Perseverance rover cocooned within the Mars 2020 spacecraft's aeroshell had logged over 35 million miles, or 56 million km, since blasting off from Florida's Space Coast on July 30.
Mars 2020 mission planners have put aside time and propellant for five trajectory correction maneuvers to refine the spacecraft's path toward Mars and prepare the rover to target a more precise landing at Jezero Crater, an effect basin that once harbored a lake of liquid water using a river flowing into it.
The nuclear-powered Perseverance rover will explore the crater, looking for signs of early life while collecting rock core samples for return to Earth with a future assignment.
Along with the five intended course correction burnsoff, Mars 2020 mission managers have opportunities to control the spacecraft to perform backup or contingency maneuvers if needed. That'll set the stage for the Perseverance rover's landing on Mars on Feb. 18.
The spacecraft fired its main engine for 20 minutes at the first of many maneuvers planned throughout the trip to Mars. The move also served as an evaluation of the probe's main engine, which performed well during the burn, Chinese officials said. The ambitious mission will become China's very first to reach Mars, and includes an orbiter, lander and rover.
If China brings off these feats according to plan, they'll make China the third country to execute a soft landing on Mars -- following the Soviet Union and the United States -- and the second country to drive a robotic rover on the Red Planet.
NASA has developed the sole powerful rovers on Mars to date.
The UAE's Hope Mars orbiter has also successfully executed its first interplanetary course correction maneuver, assignment officials announced Aug. 17.
At a tweet, officials described the occasion as a"major milestone" on the trip to Mars. It had been the first firing of the probe's six biggest thrusters since the orbiter's launching July 19 in addition to a Japanese H-2A rocket.
Funded and headed by the United Arab Emirates -- and developed in partnership with U.S. scientists -- the Hope Mars probe carries a digital camera to image the Martian surface, dust storms and ice clouds, and spectrometers to quantify elements at multiple levels of the planet's atmosphere.