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NASA was expected to launch its historic Artemis I Moon mission on Monday, a mission that the agency hopes will pave the way to bringing humans back to the Moon and help establish a sustainable presence on the lunar surface.
The Artemis mission is considered an important step in ongoing efforts to send a manned mission to Mars and it comes at a time of strategic competition with Russia and China, nations that also have their own space programs.
The first country to send its astronauts to Mars is likely to derive significant advantages in terms of scientific research, the potential development of new technologies, and the possibility of extracting valuable resources from the red planet.
"A successful Artemis launch will be a curtain raiser for a new revolution in humanity's space exploration with the moon being a gateway to Mars," Amrutur Anilkumar, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Vanderbilt University and director of the Vanderbilt Aerospace Design Laboratory, told Newsweek on Sunday.
Preparations for the launch were disrupted early on Monday by a liquid hydrogen leak and NASA officially postponed the launch of the spacecraft.
NASA has other possible launch windows for the Artemis mission on September 2 and 5 but it was not immediately clear when the launch would now take place.
Monday's planned launch of the unmanned Artemis Moon rocket and the race to land on Mars comes amid significant tensions between the U.S. and its respective space competitors.
The ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine has severely damaged U.S.-Russia relations as the U.S. and its allies have strongly opposed Russia's actions and imposed strong economic sanctions.
China has been attempting to position itself as a geopolitical rival to the U.S., particularly in the Asia Pacific region, and a recent visit to the island of Taiwan by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was met with a furious response and has apparently increased tensions.
Funding and Missions
The U.S. and China may be considered the two most prominent space powers as Russia has severely reduced funding for its space program, while NASA remains the best-funded of the three.
NASA's budget for 2022 was $24 billion, an increase of three percent from the previous fiscal year. The China National Space Administration is secretive about its work and funding but it had an estimated budget of $13 billion in 2020.
By contrast, the budget of Russia's Roscosmos space agency was reduced from $5 billion to $1.4 billion from 2014 to 2020. There are other reasons for thinking China is a bigger competitor than Russia when it comes to space generally and Mars in particular.
The European Space Agency (ESA) cut ties with Roscosmos on a planned $1 billion mission to Mars following the invasion of Ukraine. The ESA will no longer co-operate with Russia on that mission, making a Russian trip to the planet less likely.
NASA is expected to send a manned mission to Mars in the early 2030s, while China has said they will send their first manned mission in 2033 and build a base on the planet.
China has had major recent success in its space program as its unmanned Tianwen-1 spacecraft photographed the entire planet Mars between its arrival in February, 2021 and June this year.
The Chinese mission also involved landing a rover, Zhurong, which was the first rover on the red planet not operated by NASA.
Earlier in August Roscosmos announced plans for a new space station in the wake of Moscow pulling out of the International Space Station (ISS) in 2024.
China and Russia Cooperate
While China has had more success and a more heavily funded space program, the country is also cooperating with Russia in ways that may be of strategic concern to the U.S.
The two countries entered into an agreement in 2018 on space cooperation.
Kevin Pollpeter, a senior research scientist at the CNA think tank's China Studies Division, told Air Force Magazine in May that though China and Russia "do not have completely overlapping security concerns, they do share a strong desire to counter U.S. leadership, including in outer space."
Chinese-Russian cooperation includes areas such as ballistics missile defense, satellite navigation and monitoring space debris. That has reportedly led to exchanges in technology, weapons sales, combined exercises and other forms of cooperation.
There have long been concerns that space could become a new theatre of conflict, and militarization of space is considered a risk as a result of competition between the U.S., China and Russia.
The U.S. Space Force, established during the Trump administration, is likely to become increasingly important in the coming years if the current rivalry in terms of space exploration continues.
Pollpeter said Space Force was "broadly on track" to meet challenges from Russia and China.
Newsweek has reached out to the Department of Defense for comment.
"In exploring space, NASA will follow what we have spelled out in the Artemis Accords–that we will be transparent about all activities, operate in a safe and responsible manner, and avoid harm and interference," NASA said in a statement to Newsweek on Monday.
"We encourage all nations to act responsibly in space," the agency said.
The Artemis Accords are an agreement between the U.S. and other governments participating in the Artemis program.
Private Companies
While the U.S. and China have clear plans to land on Mars, private companies have also expressed an interest in traveling to the red planet.
SpaceX is the most prominent company seeking to send humans to Mars and has long-term plans to establish a human settlement there, but it is not alone in ambitions for the red planet.
Two smaller companies, Relativity Space and Impulse Space, have teamed up in order to send the first commercial payload mission to Mars in 2024 in the hopes of advancing "the companies' shared goal of a multi-planetary existence for humanity."
The unmanned mission aims to put a lander on the planet.
Interest in both exploring and settling people on Mars is likely to continue, while both national space programs and private companies compete for their place in the history of space exploration.
Update 08/29/22 10.19a.m. E.T.: This article was updated to note that the Artemis launch has been postponed and to change the headline to reflect the postponement.
About the writer
Darragh Roche is a U.S. News Reporter based in Limerick, Ireland. His focus is reporting on U.S. politics. He has ... Read more