Planned Missions
Thanks to a launch window when Mars is closer to the Earth, enabling shorter trips, and a bit of coincidence, there are quite a few Mars mission launches scheduled for summer 2020. The ones on this list are by no means the only ones. There are no less than seven already confirmed missions through 2024, and at least a dozen more through the mid 2040s.
For the purposes of brevity, we’ll focus on the confirmed missions here in depth, but we’ll also talk about the proposed missions later on.
Hope Mars Mission, 2020
Hope is a notable mission for one big reason: It marks the first Mars probe launched by any Arab or Muslim country. Announced by Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, president of the United Arab Emirates, Hope aims to discover why the planet has lost its atmosphere. The findings are also expected to help scientists better model our own atmosphere going back some 1 million years. The UAE is currently targeting a July 2020 launch, and arrive at Mars in 2021, around the time of the UAE’s 50th Anniversary.
