The Red Planet’s SKY AT NIGHT

At the beginning of the third Star Trek film the USS Enterprise, battered and bruised after defeating Khan in the swirling clouds of the Mutara Nebula, memorably returns home and berths at Spacedock, a huge mushroomshaped space station that controls the flow of traffic to and from Earth. It won’t be long until Mars needs one of those, as there are so many missions heading there that Mars space is getting pretty crowded. And in February 2021, there’s going to be even more of a traffic jam around the Red Planet as an expeditionary fleet of three spacecraft arrives around the same time.

The United Arab Emirates Hope spacecraft, China’s Tianwen-1 orbiter/lander and NASA’s Perseverance rover will all send back a wealth of new information about Mars, answering questions and solving mysteries about the planet’s past, present and future. Their results will also be used to support efforts to send astronauts to Mars, hopefully some time in the next decade.