- China has successfully put its Tianwen-1 mission in orbit around Mars, joining the United Arab Emirates, which accomplished the same feat on Tuesday.
- Difference of missions: China's undertaking consists of an orbiter, deployable camera, lander and rover, which will search for evidence of current and past life, explore soil composition and examine the Martian atmosphere. The UAE's space probe will meanwhile study weather cycles and how the weather varies in different regions of the Red Planet.
- The U.S., which first orbited Mars in 1971, will also record a Mars milestone next week. NASA's Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter drone, part of the Mars Exploration Program, will touch down in the Jezero crater on February 18.
- Why are all of them arriving at the same time? The three missions were part of the July 2020 "Mars launch window," which occur every couple of years when Earth is the closest to its galactic neighbor.
- Other U.S. companies providing technology, trying to get to, or even settle Mars include SpaceX (SPACE), Blue Origin (BORGN), Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT), Boeing (NYSE:BA), Spirit AeroSystems (NYSE:SPR), Aerojet Rocketdyne (NYSE:AJRD) and Maxar Technologies (NYSE:MAXR).
- Last month, Cathie Wood's ARK Invest jumped into the space race with an actively managed ETF that will primarily track companies engaged in space exploration and innovation.