Dubai: Attempts to discover the red planet date back to the 1960s when the first space craft, the Mariner 4, was launched by Nasa.
After the first close-up photographs of Mars were collected on July 14, 1965, projects and research to reveal the nature of the planet and the possibility of life on Mars became an interest to other space agencies around the world. There have been more missions attempted to Mars than any other planet in the solar system over several decades. While many failed, data was collected from orbiters and a few landed missions.
Nasa’s Viking Project made history when it became the first US mission to land a spacecraft safely on the surface of Mars and return images of the surface in 1976. The two identical spacecraft, each consisting of a lander and an orbiter, flew together and entered Mars’ orbit. Besides taking photographs and collecting other science data on the Martian surface, the two landers conducted three biology experiments designed to look for possible signs of life.
In August 2012, Nasa’s one-tonne rover, known as Curiosity, travelled 570 million kilometres from earth before landing in a deep crater near the planet’s equator. The rover began a two-year mission to look for evidence of life on Mars.
So far, Nasa has categorised the exploration of Mars into three stages. The very first few missions were carried out by flybys, which only flew by the planet, taking as many pictures as possible on their way past. With technological advancement and more space knowledge, spacecraft were able to orbit around Mars for a longer time, and collect more data about the planet’s atmosphere, land forms, weather, internal structure and gravity. Then, after even more technological advancement, spacecraft were able to land on the surface of Mars.
Gulf News talked to Dr Hameed Al Nuaimi, Chairman of the Arab Union for Astronomy and Space, who said that the country’s announcement of its new space mission to Mars has placed the UAE on the world map in terms of space exploration and technology. With only a handful of countries with space programmes to explore the red planet, Al Nuaimi listed Japan, China, India, Canada, Russia, USA and Europe as countries or regions with space programmes to explore Mars, with the UAE as the newest addition.
