4 spacecraft missions to mars planned to be launched within this summer. Click here to know the reasons.

4 spacecraft missions to mars planned to be launched within this summer. Click here to know the reasons

 Four missions were intended to launch to Mars this summer, including three rovers, from various space agencies. Two, including China's Tianwen-1 (which is taking a rover) and United Arab Emirates' Hope Probe, launched last week and are now on their route to Mars. NASA's Perseverance rover is up next, planned to launch on July 30. And Europe's first planetary rover will have to wait a little longer to commence its mission to Mars.

The European Space Agency and Roscosmos, Russia's space agency, have delayed the launch of their ExoMars rover, partly due to anxieties over the coronavirus, they declared in March. The agencies indicated anxieties over the coronavirus and spacecraft component readiness as reasons for the postponement. Additional analyses will ensure that the spacecraft's components are completed and ready. The rover was scheduled to launch in July 2020. Now, the joint-agency project crews are eyeing a new launch window between August and October 2022.

While the pandemic has caused difficulties and caused obstacles to other missions, crews operating on missions scheduled to land on Mars were motivated to get everything set by the planned launch date.

The other hurdles also include that the Earth is moving at a much fast clip of 67,000 miles per hour as it orbits the sun -- which creates our 365-day orbit. But Mars is far away from the sun, so it's slower and takes longer. A year on Mars is around 687 Earth days. The planets aren't going in definite circular paths around the sun, either. Instead, they have egg-shaped, or more oval-shaped, orbits. And Mars' orbit is pulled on by massive gas giant Jupiter, which can alter the orbit shape as well.

Mars and Earth are also somewhat tilted in their orbits. But every 26 months, Mars and Earth settle up in an accurate alignment on the same side of the sun and are closer together than normal. Launches to Mars are targeted at this time because any spacecraft leaving Earth will have a quicker journey to Mars -- which means fewer supplies such as fuel are required as well.

While Mars will obtain its nearest approach to Earth in October, at only 38.6 million miles from Earth, the highest distance between Earth and Mars can reach as many as 249 million miles, according to NASA.

If the rover doesn't launch the July 13 to August 15 window, it will be stored in the storage and the crews will have to wait two years for another launch opportunity.

Storage of the spacecraft and other factors of the postponement would cost NASA $500 million and affect the long-term aims of NASA's Mars Exploration Program, according to NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine.

"I hope people watch this mission and that they're inspired that we can strive and achieve even amid challenging times," he stated during a press conference in June.