The theme of World Space Week 2013 is “Exploring Mars, Discovering Earth”. With more attention than ever on the Red Planet (so-called due to the high levels of reddish iron oxide in its soil) and human missions set to visit from 2018, the time is right to take a closer look at Mars – and what it tells us about Earth.
Most of the UK’s involvement with space exploration is handled through the UK Space Agency (UKSA), which is part of the European Space Agency (ESA). With many countries in Europe pursuing similar goals in space, it makes political and economic sense to collaborate on joint missions rather than try to perform the same experiments individually. On Mars, there are two main ESA-led missions going on:
Mars Express: A two-part orbiter and lander, this mission was successfully launched in 2003 and has been imaging/analysing the Martian surface and atmosphere since 2004. The UK-built Beagle 2 lander detached from the Mars Express orbiter on schedule, but did not make contact as expected and was eventually pronounced lost. Nobody knows what went wrong, but it is notoriously difficult to explore Mars – of the 51 missions that have been launched since 1960, only 21 have been successful.
ExoMars: Due to launch in 2016 and 2018, this mission will consist of an orbiter, lander and rover, and will look for biosignatures (traces of life). While finding evidence of extraterrestrial life will be an amazing discovery in its own right, it will also tell us a lot about how life may have started on Earth – and hence our own origins.
The next steps after these experiments will (as you may have read about) most likely be sample-return and human-visit missions. While probes and robots can tell us almost everything we need to know about the planet, we will eventually want to start living offworld – and Mars is the natural place to start.
Also as part of Space Week, the UKSA is giving away models of the Skylon spaceplane (featured on this blog a few weeks ago) and signed postcards of Major Tim (the first UK astronaut to crew the International Space Station). Full details here!