Could 2020 be the best year for exploring Mars?
The United States, China, the United Arab Emirates, Europe and Russia.
- All the above countries are planning Mars missions, and they are scheduled to launch, around 2020.
- Prime launch windows (where the least amount of power is required to travel between the two planets) only open up every 26 months. One of the windows is between July and August of 2020, which is when these missions are scheduled
- The company,SpaceX, is developing the Dragon spacecraft and Falcon reusable rockets with a goal of sending manned missions to Mars. It is developing ways to create efficient rockets that can be reused, an interplanetary transport system and a global communications network. It is funded through a combination of venture capital, commercial and public contracts, which include deals with Nasa and the US Air Force, and privately contributed cash. Musk plans to keep the company private until after its Mars Colonial Transporter flying regularly.
- The CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, Elon Musk, plans to build a Martian city with a million inhabitants in the not too distant future.
- Professor Stephen Hawking has said humans need to start leaving Earth within 30 years if they are are going to avoid being wiped out by over-population and climate change. Donald Trump has also expressed the desire to send humans to Mars - by 2030, depending on his mood. Nasa, has a two-decade plan to send humans to the Red Planet.
- NASA’s on-going Journey to Mars programme has been called ‘mankind’s next great leap forward’ by the space agency, and aims to send astronauts to the red planet by the 2030s. The mission will use NASA’s existing Orion spacecraft to transport a manned crew with a host of new technologies, and could pave the way for the establishment of a permanent human presence on Mars by the middle of the century.
Elon Musk plans a martian city
NASA
