In a CNN essay, the US President has vowed to send people to Mars in 14 years by partnering with private industry. Companies are reportedly working on building habitats to transport astronauts on deep space missions.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/M.B.Ceneta
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The United States plans to work with private space travel companies in order to bring people to Mars, US President Barack Obama announced on Tuesday.
"We have set a clear goal vital to the next chapter of America's story in space: sending humans to Mars by the 2030s and returning them safely to Earth, with the ultimate ambition to one day remain there for an extended time," Obama wrote in the CNN opinion piece.
Since taking office eight years ago, Obama has said the US wants to send astronauts to the Red Planet, Earth's neighbor, by the 2030s. Tuesday's announcement denotes the country's first plans to include private companies in Washington's previously announced plan.
"I'm excited to announce that we are working with our commercial partners to build new habitats that can sustain and transport astronauts on long-duration missions in deep space," Obama wrote.
The hope is to evolve the habitats into spacecraft which would support human life for the long trip to Mars, wrote NASA Administrator Charles Bolden in a NASA blog post on Tuesday. Bolden also said NASA has been working with six companies since 2014 to develop the technology.
In his essay, Obama said private space travel companies plan on sending astronauts for the first time to the International Space Station.
SpaceX did not immediately comment on the president's remarks on Tuesday.
The ExoMars mission: Phase 1 begins
The goal of the ExoMars mission is to search for traces of life on Mars. The first phase of the mission will search for the best place to do so on the red planet.
Image: ESA
All fueled up
More than a decade's worth of work is tucked inside the body of this Russian Proton-M rocket: the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) and the Schiaparelli EDM lander. The rocket, having just been fueled, was moved to the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on March 10, 2016, where it was raised upright. Historically, the Proton rocket has a failure rate of 10 percent.
Image: ESA
Separation
Hours after the launch, the orbiter (black) and lander (gold) will emerge from the rocket's shell. Thus begins their seven-month journey to Mars. The Earth-Mars orbital alignment is favorable to this portion of the ExoMars mission, meaning the journey is a relatively short one.
Image: ESA
Goodbye, friend
Having accompanied each other through empty space for more than 200 days, the lander and orbiter will detach from one another three days before reaching Mars. The time is late October. For the rest of their robotic lives, they're on their own.
Image: ESA
Down it goes!
And the lander's off! At this point it's traveling at more than 20,000 kilometers per hour (12,500 miles per hour, or about 3 miles per second). Its destination is predetermined: Meridiani Planum, a flat, broad plain rich in hematite, which on Earth is often formed in hot springs. Things are about to get hot...
Image: ESA
Soft landing
Mars' atmosphere will "drag" or slow the lander, allowing it to deploy a parachute (model seen here) to reduce its velocity to roughly 200 kilometers per hour (120 MPH). When its height above the surface reaches 1.2 kilometers, the cord will sever and the lander will deploy thrusters to slow its descent and land.
Image: ESA
Tasting the air
Once on Mars, a variety of instruments inside the lander will collect various atmospheric data over a period of four days. This will give Europe's and Russia's space agencies critical information for a future rover landing. When the four days are up, Schiaparelli's battery will run out. Its mission is over.
Image: ESA
Great view up here!
Meanwhile, the orbiter will still be scooting around up above. The jets seen here will only be deployed initially - to change an elliptical orbit into a circular one.
Image: ESA
Something smells
At that point, the orbiter's job for the next few years will be to "sniff" Mars' atmosphere for traces of methane gas. Scientists in Europe and Russia will be analyzing this data to determine the best spot to aim their rover. Methane could be a clue to biological activity - a sign of life on Mars.
Image: ESA
The ExoMars rover
A 2018 follow-up launch will send the ExoMars rover toward a predetermined point on the red planet - likely Oxia Planum, which is 3,000 meters below the Martian mean and which is rich in iron-magnesium. That means water might have played a role there. See that dark gray cylinder on the front...?
Image: ESA
Drill, baby, drill!
That's the drill that will collect "cores" of Martian soil (prototype above). The hope is that when it's analyzed inside the machine through an organic molecule analyzer, it will yield signs that biological activity once occurred there. The earliest that would happen is 2019 (and maybe 2021). But it would be enormously historic. It would be the first direct evidence of life on Mars.
Image: ESA
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NASA is developing a powerful rocket known as the Space Launch System (SLS) and a deep space capsule, Orion, with the goal of eventually sending people to Earth's red neighbor.
The first SLS launch with no people on board is planned for 2018. Should it prove successful, a US mission to send humans into space beyond the Moon - but not all the way to Mars - is planned for the 2020s.
