Mars Madness

 ...yeah, I know it's February and also I stole that shamelessly from Space.com.

Three missions will reach Mars in February (Mars missions travel in packs because you want to send them when the two planets are closest).

And one of them will add a new country to the Mars race. The United Arab Emirates orbiter will arrive today, the first interplanetary mission from the gulf state, with the goal of improving our knowledge of Martian weather.

China's Tianwen-1 mission will put the first Chinese rover on Mars. Tianwen-1's aims are a little less clear because the Chinese are tighter lipped, but appears to include attempts to measure the Martian ionosphere from orbit, while the rover demonstrates technology for a sample-return mission and looks at soil composition.

NASA's own mission will attempt to fly the first helicopter style drone on Mars, look for life and collect soil and rock samples to be cached for a potential sample return mission. They're also going to try and extract oxygen from the Martian atmosphere and look at, you got it, the weather.

Hopefully we'll get some interesting data.