The summer race to land a space probe on Mars is off to a hot start.

Three countries—The Hope Probe (United Arab Emirates), Tianwen-1 (China) and Mars 2020 (United States)—have all taken their positions, hoping to take advantage of the period of time when the Earth and Mars are nearest: a mere 55 million kilometres (34 million miles) apart.

The neighbouring planets only come this close once every 26 months—a narrow "launch window" based on their relative positions in space.

Space agencies from all three nations plan to send rovers to the Red Planet to look for additional signs of past life and potentially pave the way to—someday—step foot on its surface.