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Over the course of the next month, we'll see the arrival at Mars of not one, not two, but three spacecraft: Nasa\u2019s Perseverance Rover, with its little helicopter Ingenuity; the Chinese Space Agency's Tianwen-1 mission, which comprises an orbiting spacecraft, a landing platform and a rover; and the UAE's Hope mission, which is an orbiting spacecraft.\n\nIn this episode we'll be hearing about the upcoming missions to Mars, as a bit of insight into the Chinese Space Programme.\n\nOf course, a sensible question is: why all the interest in Mars? It's a dead planet now \u2013 or certainly pretty dead \u2013 but perhaps that wasn\u2019t always the way. To find out more I spoke to Dr Peter Fawden, whose expertise is the geological history of Mars. Peter is based at the Open University where he works on the imaging cameras of a future mission: the Rosalind Franklin Rover, due to launch in a couple of years. On Earth we can dig up rocks, or go to a cliff, perhaps by a beach, and look at the layers of rock, studying the order in which they were laid down, and taking samples all the time. But what about on Mars, when we can\u2019t get so up-close and personal with the rocks? Well, it turns out, it's not so very different after all. Peter explains the geological history of Mars, where the Perseverance Rover is going to explore, and what the plans are for Rosalind Franklin rover in a couple of years. We also touch on two very intersting aspects of Mars - water and methane.\n\nWhile it's relatively easy to find people working on Nasa and ESA missions, it's somewhat hard to get information about Chinese missions. Who better to speak to than someone who has their ear to the ground, Freelance journalist Andrew Jones. Andrew writes for a range of publications, where he reports on the Chinese Space Programme. Andrew provides us with some fascinating history of the Chinese Space Programme, and what its other high-profile missions are up to, notably the Chang'e 4 and 5 moon missions.\n\nPeter Fawden\n03:30 - Martian Geology\n13:30 - Perseverance\n17:00 - Water on Mars\n21:20 - ExoMars Rosalind Franklin Rover\n25:25 - Methane on Mars\n\nAndrew Jones\n29:00 - Chinese Space Agency\n38:40 - Chang'e 4 and 5 Moon Missions\n45:30 - Tianwen-1 plans\n48:20 - Hope