NASA, China and the UAE are scheduled to send missions to Mars in July - MSN Money

Starting in July the window opens when missions to Mars can be easily sent across the interplanetary gulf.

The number of missions, who is launching them and their complexity illustrate the importance Mars has for purveyors of space exploration policy.

While the rover spends 90 Martian days rolling about studying Mars at close range, the orbiter will examine it from a wider perspective for about a Martian year, serving as a communication relay.

Why are so many missions being sent to Mars in a single month?

The human expedition to Mars, which will stop by the moon to top off rocket fuel created by lunar water, will be a singular, historic event of this century, dwarfing the Apollo moon landing.

China is mounting an expedition to Mars to enhance its status as a major space power.

Beijing envisions its space program, which includes a planned crewed space station and several robotic expeditions to the moon leading to a crewed landing, as a means to define itself as a superpower, first as a peer of the United States, but in the long term to supplant America.

Mark Whittington, who writes frequently about space and politics, has published a political study of space exploration entitled Why is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon?