THE RED PLANET Page 1

Infant Ronald Reagan J

Course Title: Astrophysics
11 March y

THE RED PLANET

Introduction:

Mar is a one of the neighbour planet in the solar family.Actually the plans and
mission to the mars are scientifically encougagable but if we ask a question why we are doing
like this, there is a big political behind this every act.Mars was named by the ancient Romans for
their god of war because its reddish colour was reminiscent of blood. Other civilisations also
named the planet for this attribute; for example, the Egyptians called it "Her Desher," meaning
"the red one." Even today, it is frequently called the "Red Planet" because iron minerals in the
Martian dirt oxidise , or rust, causing the surface to look red.
With a radius of 2,106 miles (3,390 kilometres), Mars is about half the size of Earth. If
Earth were the size of a nickel, Mars would be about as big s a raspberry.From an average
distance of 142 million miles (228 million kilometres), Mars is 1.5 astronomical units away from
the Sun. One astronomical unit (abbreviated as AU), is the distance from the Sun to Earth. From
this distance, it takes sunlight 13 minutes to travel from the Sun to Mars.Since ancient times,
Mars has captured the imagination of humankind, sparking an interest in scientists and artists.
Over a period spanning two millennia Europeans have made many important observations of this
Red Planet.

Physiology of Mars:
When the solar system settled into its current layout about 4.5 billion years ago,
Mars formed when gravity pulled swirling gas and dust in to become the fourth planet from the
Sun. Mars is about half the size of Earth, and like its fellow terrestrial planets, it has a central
core, a rocky mantle and a solid crust.
Mars has a dense core at its centre between 930 and 1,300 miles (1,500 to 2,100
kilometres) in radius. It's made of iron, nickel and sulphur. Surrounding the core is a rocky
mantle between 770 and 1,170 miles (1,240 to 1,880 kilometres) thick, and above that, a crust
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made of iron, magnesium, aluminium, calcium and potassium. This crust is between 6 and 30
miles (10 to 50 kilometres) deep.
Mars has two small moons, Phobos and Deimos, that may be captured asteroids. They're
potato-shaped because they have too little mass for gravity to make them spherical.
Phobos, the innermost and larger moon, is heavily cratered, with deep grooves on its
surface. It is slowly moving towards Mars and will crash into the planet or break apart in about
50 million years.Deimos is about half as big as Phobos and orbits two and a half times farther
away from Mars.

Surface and Atmosphere:

The Red Planet is actually many colours. At the surface we see colours such as
brown, gold and tan. The reason Mars looks reddish is due to oxidisation—or rusting—of iron in
the rocks, regolith (Martian “soil”), and dust of Mars. This dust gets kicked up into the
atmosphere and from a distance makes the planet appear mostly red.
Interestingly, while Mars is about half the diameter of Earth, its surface has nearly the
same area as Earth’s dry land. It’s volcanoes, impact craters, crustal movement, and atmospheric
conditions such as dust storms have altered the landscape of Mars over many years, creating
some of the solar system's most interesting topographical features. A large canyon system called
Valles Marineris is long enough to stretch from California to New York—more than 3,000 miles
(4,800 kilometres). This Martian canyon is 200 miles (320 kilometres) at its widest and 4.3 miles
(7 kilometres) at its deepest. That's about 10 times the size of Earth's Grand Canyon.Mars is
home to the largest volcano in the solar system, Olympus Mons. It's three times taller than Earth's
Mt. Everest with a base the size of the state of New Mexico.
Mars appears to have had a watery past, with ancient river valley networks, deltas and
lake-beds, as well as rocks and minerals on the surface that could only have formed in liquid
water. Some features suggest that Mars experienced huge floods about 3.5 billion years ago.
There is water on Mars today, but the Martian atmosphere is too thin for liquid water to exist for
long on the surface. Today, water on Mars is found in the form of water-ice just under the surface
in the polar regions as well as in briny (salty) water, which seasonally flows down some hillsides
and crater walls.
Mars has no global magnetic field today, but areas of the Martian crust in the southern
hemisphere are highly magnetised, indicating traces of a magnetic field from 4 billion years ago.
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Exobiology of Mars:
In the mid 20th century, American geneticist Joshua Lederberg, Nobel Prize
winner in Medicine, coined the word "exobiology" to describe the study of the existence of life
outside the Earth and to outline the risk of bio-contamination related to space flights that might,
in the future, contaminate and ruin bacterial ecosystems in outer space and on other planets.
Exobiology, also referred to as bio-astronomy or astrobiology, tries to answer the
questions regarding the origin, evolution and distribution of life.It wasn't until the second half of
the 20th century that exobiology was raised to the rank of a science. This came about mainly as a
result of the development of space technology and scientific programmes within the space
agencies.The goal of exobiologists became to find signs of primitive life, and Mars remained the
target planet. According to current scientific knowledge about the possible development of life on
Earth, the Red Planet could have (or had in the past) the environmental conditions (liquid water
and moderate temperatures) capable of supporting complex organic molecules and possibly self-
regenerated organisms.

Methane:
Methane (CH4) is an organic molecule present in gaseous form in the Earth's atmosphere.
More than 90% of methane on our home planet is produced by living organisms. The recent
detection of plumes of methane in the northern hemisphere of Mars is of great interest because of
its potential biological origin, though other explanations may also be possible.
Methane breaks up in the presence of ultraviolet solar radiation. Based on photochemical
models and on the current understanding of the composition of the Martian atmosphere, methane
has a chemical lifetime of about 300-600 years, which is very short on geological time scales.
This implies that the methane that is observed today cannot have been produced 4.5 billion years
ago, when the planets formed.

Compression of Earth and Mars:

EARTH MARS

Average Distance 93 million miles 142 million miles

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from Sun

Average Speed in 18.5 miles per 14.5 miles per

Orbiting Sun second second

Diameter 7,926 miles 4,220 miles

Length of Year 365.25 Days 687 Earth Days

23 hours 56 24 hours 37
Length of Day
minutes minutes

2.66 times that of

Gravity 0.375 that of Earth
Mars

mostly carbon
nitrogen, oxygen,
Atmosphere dioxide, some
argon, others
water vapor

Number of Moons 1 2

Mars Exploration Mission:

No planet beyond Earth has been studied as intensely as Mars. Recorded observations
of Mars date as far back as the era of ancient Egypt over 4,000 years ago, when they charted the
planet's movements in the sky. Today, a science fleet of robotic spacecraft study Mars from all
angles.
• Six spacecraft are in orbit at Mars. NASA's scientist trio are Mars Reconnaissance
Orbiter, Mars Odyssey and MAVEN. ESA managed the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter and
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Mars Express-missions. India's first Red Planet spacecraft — the Mars Orbiter Mission
(MOM) — since 2014.
• Two robotic spacecraft are at work on the surface. NASA's Curiosity rover is
exploring Mount Sharp in Gale Crater. NASA's InSight, a stationary lander, is probing
Mars' interior from a site on a flat smooth plain called Elysium Planitia.
• Both NASA and ESA have plans to send new rovers to Mars in 2020.
Scientists don't expect to find living things currently thriving on Mars. Instead, they're
looking for signs of life that existed long ago, when Mars was warmer and covered with water.

The Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM):

The Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), also called Mangalyaan, is a space probe
orbiting Mars since 24 September 2014. It was launched on 5 November 2013 by the Indian
Space Research Organisation(ISRO).It is India's first interplanetary mission and it made it the
fourth space agency to reach Mars, after Roscosmos, NASA, and the European Space Agency.[16]
[17]
It made India the first Asian nation to reach Martian orbit and the first nation in the world to
do so on its maiden attempt.
The Mars Orbiter Mission probe lifted-off from the First Launch Pad at Satish Dhawan
Space Centre(Sriharikota Range SHAR), Andhra Pradesh, using a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle
(PSLV) rocket C25 at 09:08 UTC on 5 November 2013. The launch window was approximately
20 days long and started on 28 October 2013.[5] The MOM probe spent about a month in Earth
orbit, where it made a series of seven apogee-raising orbital manoeuvres before trans-Mars
injection on 30 November 2013 (UTC).After a 298-day transit to Mars, it was put into Mars orbit
on 24 September 2014.The mission is a "technology demonstrator" project to develop the
technologies for designing, planning, management, and operations of an interplanetary mission.[24]
It carries five scientific instruments.[25] The spacecraft is currently being monitored from the
Spacecraft Control Centre at ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) in
Bengaluru with support from the Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) antennae at Bengaluru,
Karnataka.
The total cost of the mission was approximately ₹450 Crore (US$73
million),making it the least-expensive Mars mission to date. The low cost of the mission was
ascribed by K. Radhakrishnan, the chairman of ISRO, to various factors, including a "modular
approach", few ground tests and long (18–20 hour) working days for scientists.BBC's Jonathan
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Amos mentioned lower worker costs, home-grown technologies, simpler design, and a
significantly less complicated payload than NASA's MAVEN.

Mission objectives:
Primary objective of the mission is to develop the technologies required for designing,
planning, management and operations of an interplanetary mission.[24] The secondary objective is
to explore Mars' surface features, morphology, mineralogy and Martian atmosphere using
indigenous scientific instruments.
The main objectives are to develop the technologies required for designing, planning,
management and operations of an interplanetary mission comprising the following major tasks:
• Orbit manoeuvres to transfer the spacecraft from Earth-centred orbit to heliocentric
trajectory and finally, capture into Martian orbit
• Development of force models and algorithms for orbit and attitude (orientation)
computations and analysis.
• Navigation in all phases.
• Maintain the spacecraft in all phases of the mission.
• Meeting power, communications, thermal and payload operation requirements.
• Incorporate autonomous features to handle contingency situations.
The scientific objectives deal with the following major aspects:
• Exploration of Mars surface features by studying the morphology, topography and
mineralogy.
• Study the constituents of Martian atmosphere including methane and CO2 using
remote sensing techniques.
• Study the dynamics of the upper atmosphere of Mars, effects of solar wind and
radiation and the escape of volatiles to outer space.
The mission would also provide multiple opportunities to observe the Martian
moon Phobos and also offer an opportunity to identify and re-estimate the orbits of asteroids seen
during the Martian Transfer Trajectory.
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ExoMars:
ExoMars (Exobiology on Mars) is an astrobiology programme by the
European Space Agency(ESA) and the Russian space agency Roscosmos.
The goals of ExoMars are to search for signs of past life on Mars, investigate how the
Martian water and geochemical environment varies, investigate atmospheric trace gases and their
sources and by doing so demonstrate the technologies for a future Mars sample-return mission.
The first part of the programme is a mission launched in 2016 that placed the Trace Gas
Orbiterinto Mars orbit and released the Schiaparelli EDM lander. The orbiter is operational but
the lander crashed on the planet's surface. The second part of the programme is planned to launch
in July 2020, when the Kazachok lander will deliver the Rosalind Franklin rover on the surface,
supporting a science mission that is expected to last into 2022 or beyond.
The Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) and a test stationary lander called Schiaparelli were
launched on 14 March 2016.TGO entered Mars orbit on 19 October 2016 and proceeded to map
the sources of methane (CH4) and other trace gases present in the Martian atmosphere that could

be evidence for possible biological or geological activity. The TGO features four instruments and
will also act as a communications relay satellite. The Schiaparelli experimental lander separated
from TGO on 16 October and was manoeuvred to land in Meridiani Planum, but it crashed on the
surface of Mars.The landing was designed to test new key technologies to safely deliver the 2020
rover mission.
In 2020, a Roscosmos lander named Kazachok (refers to "little Cossack" as well as a folk
dance), is to deliver the ESA Rosalind Franklin rover to the Martian surface. The rover will also
include some Roscosmos built instruments. The second mission operations and communications
will be led by ALTEC's Rover Control Centre in Italy.

Mission objectives:
The scientific objectives, in order of priority, are:
• to search for possible biosignatures of past Martian life.
• to characterise the water and geochemical distribution as a function of depth in the
shallow subsurface.
• to study the surface environment and identify hazards to future manned missions to
Mars.
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• to investigate the planet's subsurface and deep interior to better understand the
evolution and habitability of Mars.
• achieve incremental steps ultimately culminating in a sample return flight.
The technological objectives to develop are:
• landing of large payloads on Mars.
• to exploit solar electric power on the surface of Mars.
• to access the subsurface with a drill able to collect samples down to a depth of 2
metres (6.6 ft)
• to develop surface exploration capability using a rover.
Two missions are foreseen within the ExoMars programme: one consisting of the
Trace Gas Orbiter plus an Entry, Descent and landing demonstrator Module (EDM), known as
Schiaparelli, launched on 14 March 2016, and the other, featuring a rover, with a launch date of
2020. Both missions will be carried out in cooperation with Roscosmos.
The ExoMars programme will demonstrate a number of essential flight and in-situ
enabling technologies that are necessary for future exploration missions, such as an international
Mars Sample Return mission. These include:
• Entry, descent and landing (EDL) of a payload on the surface of Mars;
• Surface mobility with a rover;
• Access to the subsurface to acquire samples; and
• Sample acquisition, preparation, distribution and analysis.
At the same time a number of important scientific investigations will be carried out, for
example:
• Search for signs of past and present life on Mars;
• Investigate how the water and geochemical environment varies; and
• Investigate Martian atmospheric trace gases and their sources.
The 2016 mission is composed of the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) and an Entry, descent and
landing Demonstrator Module (EDM), known as Schiaparelli. TGO carries scientific instruments
to detect and study atmospheric trace gases, such as methane. Schiaparelli contains sensors to
evaluate the lander’s performance as it descends, and additional sensors to study the environment
at the landing site.
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SpaceX Mission:
Elon Musk and SpaceX have proposed the development of Mars transportation
infrastructure in order to facilitate the eventual colonization of Mars. The mission architecture
includes fully reusable launch vehicles, human-rated spacecraft, on-orbit propellant tankers,
rapid-turnaround launch/landing mounts, and local production of rocket fuel on Mars via in situ
resource utilization (ISRU). SpaceX's aspirational goal is to land the first humans on Mars by
2024.
The key element of the infrastructure is the SpaceX Starship, a fully reusable second stage
and space vehicle. To achieve a large payload, the spacecraft first enters Earth orbit, where it is
refuelled before it departs to Mars. After landing on Mars, the spacecraft is loaded with locally-
produced propellants to return to Earth. The expected payload of Super Heavy is for the Starship
second stage to inject between 100–150 tonnes (220,000–330,000 lb) to Mars.
SpaceX intends to concentrate its resources on the transportation part of the Mars
colonisation project, including the design of a propellant plant based on the Sabatier process that
will be deployed on Mars to synthesise methane and liquid oxygen as rocket propellants from the
local supply of atmospheric carbon dioxide and ground-accessible water ice.[4] However, Musk
advocates a larger set of long-term Mars settlement objectives, going far beyond what SpaceX
projects to build; a successful colonisation would ultimately involve many more economic actors
—whether individuals, companies, or governments—to facilitate the growth of the human
presence on Mars over many decades.

Overview and major Elements:

The SpaceX Mars architecture, first detailed publicly in 2016, consists of a combination
of several elements that are key—according to Musk—to making long-duration beyond Earth
orbit (BEO) spaceflights possible by reducing the cost per ton delivered to Mars:
Additional detail on the Mars transportation architecture was added by Musk in 2017.
• a new fully reusable super heavy-lift launch vehicle that consists of a reusable
booster stage and a reusable integrated second-stage-with-spacecraft that comes in at least
two versions: a large, long-duration, beyond-Earth-orbit spacecraft capable of carrying
passengers, bulk cargo, or propellant cargo, to other Solar System destinations. The
combination of a second-stage of a launch vehicle with a long-duration spacecraft is
unusual for any space mission architecture, and has not been seen in previous spaceflight
technology.
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• refilling of propellants in orbit, specifically to enable the long-journey spacecraft to

expend most all of its propellant load during the launch to low Earth orbit while it serves
as the second stage of the launch vehicle, and then—after refilling on orbit—provide the
significant amount of energynecessary to put the spacecraft onto an interplanetary
trajectory.
• propellant production on the surface of Mars: to enable the return trip back to Earth
and support reuse of the spacecraft, enabling significantly lower cost to transport cargo and
passengers too distant destinations. Once again, the large propellant tanks in the integrated
space vehicle are filled remotely.
• selection of the right propellant: Methane (CH4)/oxygen (O2)—also known as "deep
cryo methalox"—was selected as it was considered better than other common space
vehicle propellants like Kerolox or Hydrolox principally due to ease of production on
Mars and the lower cost of the propellants on Earth when evaluated from an overall system
optimisation perspective. Methalox was considered equivalent to one of the other primary
options in terms of vehicle reusability, on-orbit propellant transfer, and appropriateness
for super-heavy vehicles.

Potential for Life:

Scientists don't expect to find living things currently thriving on Mars. Instead, they're
looking for signs of life that existed long ago, when Mars was warmer and covered with water.
On Earth, high-temperature metamorphic processes and plate tectonics have resulted in the
reformation of most ancient terrains. It is very difficult to find rocks on Earth older than 3 billion
years in good condition. Hence, the physico-chemical record of the very early evolution of life
on Earth is no longer accessible to us.
In the study of ancient biomarkers there are two major difficulties: the first one is that
some inorganic processes can produce mineral structures very similar to simple biological shapes,
making it difficult to establish the origins of ancient microfossils just on the basis of their
morphology; the second one is that many biomarkers decompose when exposed to temperatures
greater than 200°C, that is the case of most ancient terrestrial rocks.
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Conclusion:
The mission to the mars will be improving by years but the claims of many
scientist is, if earth became more worse also it will be able to live here than mars.We can hope
that in future some technology can be created and it will help us to live in the mars like the earth.
Anything can be possible in future, let wait and see for the next game changing event.There will
be a no end to the science.