The present age of exploration in six countries… Emphasizing as an alternative planet Earth
Humanity’s efforts to reach Mars, which is 56 million km away from Earth and 410 million km away from Earth, have been in earnest since time immemorial in the 1960s.
Mars, which was called’the planet of death’ shining red in the night sky, has emerged as the most influential planet that mankind will use as a home after Earth.
As NASA’s fifth Mars exploration rover’Personality’ settled on Mars on the 18th (local time), human Mars exploration became a turning point.
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| ▲ A computer simulation showing NASA’s fifth Mars exploration rover,’Personality’, landed on Mars on the 18th (local time). |
◇ Before B.C., the god of the plague or the master of the underworld
According to NASA et al., humans have observed Mars since BC.
The ancient Babylonians, who studied astronomy since the 400s BC, called Mars’Nergal’, the god of war and plague and the master of the underworld.
The Egyptians referred to it as’the red one’ (Har Decher) or’the star of death’, and in the Greco-Roman era, the name’Mars’ was derived from the god of war.
The first person to observe Mars using a telescope for the purpose of astronomical observation was Galileo Galilei in 1609. In the same year, German astronomer Johannes Kepler speculated that Mars’ orbit was an elliptical.
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| ▲ The US Aerospace Administration (NASA)’s Mars exploration rover’Curio City’ |
◇ Mars exploration with fierce competition with the Cold War
When Mars exploration began in earnest, it was in the 1960s when the Cold War was in full swing.
At that time, the space exploration competition between the US and the Soviet Union ignited Mars exploration.
The Soviet Union fired Marsnik 1 and 2 in October 1960 to attempt a close flight to Mars (Flyby), but failed during the launch phase.
After that, in 1962, the Soviet Mars 1 succeeded in approaching about 193,000 km from Mars, but the signal was cut off afterwards.
The first successful spacecraft to fly close to Mars was the US Mariner 4, launched in November 1964. Mariner 4, which flew 7 and a half months closer to Mars, delivers 5.2 million bytes of data, including the first close-up photo of Mars, to mankind.
The United States succeeded in flying close to Mars with Mariners 6 and 7 in 1969, and in 1971, Mariner 9 entered Mars orbit.
Mariner 9 photographed 80% of the surface of Mars and succeeded in collecting evidence showing that Mars had weathering.
Mariner 9 was the first to photograph Mars’ satellites Phobos and Deimos and inform humans.
Mariner 9 is expected to still orbit Mars, as it has been estimated that it will not fall off Mars orbit for at least 50 years.
◇ The Mars Exploration Era begins when the United States burst into water in 1975
The first spacecraft to land on Mars was the Viking 1, launched by the United States in August 1975.
The Viking 1 flew to Mars for about 10 months, and on June 19, 1976, the orbiter entered Mars orbit, and on July 20 of the same year, the lander landed on the western slope of the Mars Krisé Plain.
Viking 2, launched approximately 20 days apart from 1, also succeeded in landing the lander on the Utopia Plain in September 1976.
The Vikings 1 and 2 landers communicated with Earth until November 1982 and April 1980, respectively, and informed humans of Mars.
Following the Vikings, the spacecraft that landed on Mars is the Pathfinder, launched in December 1996.
Pathfinder, as the name’guide’, is the first to release the exploration rover’Sojourner’ on Mars. Sojourner means’temporary resident’.
Pathfinder and Sojourner send 2.3 billion bytes of data, including about 17,000 photos and atmospheric and soil analysis data, until the last data is sent on September 27, 1997.
In January 1999, NASA sent Deep Space 2 to Mars to explore Mars underground, but the spacecraft appeared to have succeeded in landing, but has since disappeared.
Later, in 2003, NASA sent the twins Rover Spirit and Opportunity to Mars.
The Spirit, launched in June 2003, landed in the Gusev crater on Mars and served until March 2010. The Opportunity, which was launched one month later than the Spirit, landed on the Meridiani Plains and flew on a mission for 15 years until February of last year .
Spirit and Opportunity fueled the speculation that microbes could live on Mars by discovering evidence that Mars was wet in the past.
Opportunity, whose goal was to carry out the mission for 90 days in the first place, moved 45km from Mars after working for 15 years, far exceeding expectations, and finally fell asleep in the’Valley of Patience’.
On the day NASA announced the end of its Opportunity mission, the world was deeply sorry for the loss of a great explorer.
In November 2011, another exploration rover Curiosity departs for Mars.
Curiosity landed in the Gale Crater on Mars in August 2012 and is still actively exploring the question,’Has an environment suitable for microbes living on Mars ever created?’
◇ Currently, the age of exploration in six countries… Also attracting attention as an alternative planet
Most of the Mars expedition was conducted by the United States, but not necessarily the United States.
The countries (regions) that have successfully entered the Mars orbit are the United States, Russia, the European Union (EU), India, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and China.
The Indian Space Development Organization (ISRO) launched a Mars probe called Mangalyaan in 2013 and entered Mars orbit in 2014, and Russia and Europe landed the Mars probe Exomas on Mars in 2016.
The UAE put the Mars probe Amal (hope in Arabic) into orbit on Mars on the 10th of this month.
China’s first Mars probe, Tianyuan 1, entered orbit about 20 hours behind Amal.
In fact, the history of mankind’s exploration to Mars is marked by failures.
There have been a total of 56 attempts to explore Mars in the last 60 years, and some statistics show that only 26 of them have been successful and the success rate is less than half.
Despite several failures, the expedition to Mars is expected to become more active with the aim of finding an alternative to the Earth.
In particular, now private companies are starting to jump in.
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man who leads electric vehicle maker Tesla and space company SpaceX, has pledged to send humans to Mars by 2026.
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