Persevarance rover

Subject: Science and Technology

Context: The NASA’s Persevarance rover is set to land on MARS on Friday.

Concept:

Closely on the heels of UAE’s Hope mission entered Martian orbit, and was followed closely by a Chinese mission Tianwen-1 the NASA’s Perseverance rover is scheduled to touch down on Mars.
It shows increased spread of planetary exploration in general, and Mars exploration in particular.
This mission will see landing on Jezero Crater, which was likely filled with water in the past.
Perseverance is NASA’s 4th generation Mars Rover — starting with Sojourner from the Mars Pathfinder Mission in 1997, followed by Spirit and Opportunity from the Mars Exploration Rover Mission in 2004, and Curiosity from the Mars Science Laboratory in 2012
The goal is to look for biosignatures in the dried up lake bed at Jezero Crater. It is to explore belief that early life on Mars may have resembled early ocean-dwelling life on Earth, like stromatolites. If indeed this was the case, Perseverance would find fossils or some biosignatures — hints of life — in either the chemical measurements or morphological observations.
Perseverance will produce oxygen on the Martian surface for the first time, using atmospheric CO2 from the Martian atmosphere.
Perseverance will cache rock samples that will be returned to Earth by a subsequent European Space Agency/NASA mission

Why so many mission in short period?

Earth and Mars are at their closest distance relative to each other every 26 months providing for launch window and this is when Earthlings try to send missions to Mars.
But never in history have three space agencies headed to Mars in a single launch window. And never in history have so many space agencies simultaneously operated a mission to Mars or the orbit of Mars. There are currently 10 spacecraft from five different space agencies — the United States, European Union, India, China, and the United Arab Emirates — either orbiting or on the ground on Mars
The rise in missions is mainly due to a reduction in launch costs and the cheaper availability of the technology required in space exploration

Current missions on Mars

NASA has a lander (Mars Insight), a rover (Curiosity), and three orbiters (Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Odyssey, MAVEN)
India has an orbiter (Mangalyaan-1)
the EU has 2 orbiters (Mars Express and ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter)
China and UAE will have an orbiter each (Hope and Tianwen-1 respectively).
SpaceX is investing in starting a commercial service to transport passengers to Mars through its project “Starship”.