Starting from July 14, for the next month there are three missions that are preparing to leave for Mars with as many robots designed to explore the red planet and discover its secrets, including those of the possible presence of past and perhaps even present life forms . China, the United Arab Emirates and the United States are ready to launch their vehicles, each of which represents a record.
Great absent is Europe, which could not take advantage of the favorable position of the planet to launch the ExoMars 2020 rover, of the European Space Agency (ESA) and of the Russian Roscosmos, due to technical delays and due to the Covid-19 emergency and that it will therefore have to wait until 2022, when Mars approaches Earth again.
The first scheduled is 'Hope', in Italian 'Hope, the mission that marks the United Arab Emirates' debut on Mars and whose launch is scheduled for July 15th from the Japanese Space Center Tanegashima.
At the end of July, China is preparing for its first time on Mars with the Tianwen-1 mission, which means "Search for celestial truth" and which in February 2021 plans to bring a vehicle in the Martian orbit and on the soil of the red planet a rover equipped with 13 tools. Never before has any Chinese spacecraft had such a distant goal and the goal is to study the Martian atmosphere, the internal structure and the surface of the planet, with particular attention to the traces of the presence of water and any signs of life forms.
Finally, between 30 July and 15 August, it will be Perseverance's turn, the fifth rover that NASA is preparing to send to the Martian surface. The mission, which is scheduled to launch from the U.S. Air Force base in Cape Canaveral (Florida), is expected to arrive at its destination in March 2021 to collect the first samples of Martian soil to be sent to Earth, probably by 2031.