XIA LEI Leaving home
A heavy-lift rocket carries four astronauts into orbit. Once refuelled, it fires its engines and leaves Earth behind. Mars and Earth only line up for this trip about once every 26 months.
Mission brief
Mars
From the first footprint to a living world
Scroll to launch
Seven months in the dark
The ship coasts along a curved path around the Sun until it meets Mars. The crew exercises every day to protect muscle and bone, and sleeps behind water tanks that block radiation.
Seven minutes of terror
The ship hits the thin air at about 20,000 km/h. Its heat shield glows at 1,500 °C, then a parachute opens and rocket engines fire for touchdown. Radio messages take up to 22 minutes, so it must land itself.
One small step, again
Gravity here is just 38% of Earth’s. Wearing pressure suits, the crew steps onto rust-coloured dust that has never been touched, plants a flag and leaves the first human footprints on another planet.
Building a foothold
Habitats go up, shielded against radiation and cold. Solar arrays supply power, machines make oxygen from the carbon dioxide air, and buried ice is melted into drinking water.
Learning to live here
Greenhouses grow the first Martian harvests. Ice mines supply water, more domes spread along the ridge, and one day the first child born on Mars looks up at a blue sunset.
Turning Mars green
The boldest dream is to thicken the air and warm the planet until water flows and plants grow in the open. This is a vision, not a plan: it would take centuries or longer, and science that does not exist yet.
Mission debrief
Mars is closer than it looks
Robots have been exploring Mars for sixty years. The next explorers to land there could be people, and the first footprint is the start of a much longer story.
7 monthstypical trip
26 monthsbetween launch windows
3–22 minradio delay to Earth
38%of Earth's gravity