The Great Martian Traffic Jam

Posted by michael on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @06:21AM from the gridlock dept.

Kathy Miles writes "Not one, but three space agencies are lining up for Mars launches for June this year. The ESA (European Space Agency) is planning to launch their Mars Express in June for a December landing. NASA has two Mars landers almost ready to go, having fixed a few last minute problems and Japan is launching a Mars Orbiter called Nozomi. The two NASA rovers should arrive in January. Everyone wants to launch around June because Mars will not only be at opposition that month, but nearing a close approach to Earth in August when Mars will be closer to Earth than its been in hundreds of years."

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A Second Nozomi? by CheshireCatCO · 2003-04-23 06:57 · Score: 3, Informative

Call me confused, but I thought Nozomi was already well en route to Mars, having launched in 1998. (It's taking longer than intended to get there due to some technical difficulty; I think they blew too much propellant early on, but don't quote me on that.) I haven't found anything on a second Nozomi mission with Google. Anyone know anything about this new mission?