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Red Planet Day 2022 is celebrated on November 28, 2022.
About Red Planet Day
- It is observed annually to mark the launch of the Mariner 4 spacecraft on the Planet Mars on November 28, 1964.
- This was the first time that a spacecraft undertook the first flyby of the red planet, becoming the first-ever spacecraft to take close-up photographs of another planet.
Other Missions Related to Mars
- Viking missions of the 1970s and the 1980s: The Viking missions in the mid-seventies carried out the first chemical analysis of Martian soil, as well as four biology experiments to detect biological activity.
- Odyssey, 2001 and water on Mars: In 2001, the Gamma Ray Spectrometer on board the Mars Odyssey spacecraft detected a fascinating hydrogen signature that seemed to indicate the presence of water ice.
- NASA’s Phoenix landed on the Martian North Pole in May 2008 and survived for about 150 days.
- The robotic arms of Phoenix scooped soil and ice from the surface, heated the material in eight ovens, and measured the composition of the gases with a mass spectrometer.
- NASA has a lander (Mars Insight), a rover (Curiosity), and three orbiters (Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Odyssey, MAVEN); India has an orbiter (Mangalyaan-1); the EU has 2 orbiters (Mars Express and ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter), and China and UAE will have an orbiter each (Hope and Tianwen-1 respectively).
- The UAE mission will study the Martian atmosphere and will seek to address the billion-dollar question of how and why Mars lost its atmosphere.
- India’s Mars Orbiter Mission — a technology demonstration venture — carried five scientific payloads (Total 15 kg) collecting data on surface geology, morphology, atmospheric processes, surface temperature, and atmospheric escape process.
Source: IE
