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Look Out, Mars: Here We Come with a Fleet of Spacecraft

Associated Press

   CAPE CANAVERAL, FLA. - Mars is about to be invaded by planet Earth --
   big time.

   Three countries -- the United States, China and the United Arab
   Emirates -- are sending unmanned spacecraft to the red planet in quick
   succession beginning this week, in the most sweeping effort yet to seek
   signs of ancient microscopic life while scouting out the place for
   future astronauts.

   The U.S., for its part, is dispatching a six-wheeled rover the size of
   a car, named Perseverance, to collect rock samples that will be brought
   back to Earth for analysis in about a decade.

   "Right now, more than ever, that name is so important," NASA
   Administrator Jim Bridenstine said as preparations went on amid the
   coronavirus outbreak, which will keep the launch guest list to a
   minimum.

   Each spacecraft will travel more than 300 million miles (483 million
   kilometers) before reaching Mars next February. It takes six to seven
   months, at the minimum, for a spacecraft to loop out beyond Earth's
   orbit and sync up with Mars' more distant orbit around the sun.

   Scientists want to know what Mars was like billions of years ago when
   it had rivers, lakes and oceans that may have allowed simple, tiny
   organisms to flourish before the planet morphed into the barren, wintry
   desert world it is today.

   "Trying to confirm that life existed on another planet, it's a tall
   order. It has a very high burden of proof," said Perseverance's project
   scientist, Ken Farley of Caltech in Pasadena, California.

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