China launched its most ambitious Mars mission yet on Thursday in a bold attempt to join the United States in successfully landing a spacecraft on the red planet.
The Tianwen-1 was launched on a Long March-5 carrier rocket from a launch site on Hainan Island.
It marked the second flight to Mars this week, after a United Arab Emirates orbiter blasted off on a rocket from Japan on Monday. And the U.S. is aiming to launch Perseverance, its most sophisticated Mars rover ever, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, next week.
China’s tandem spacecraft — with both an orbiter and a rover — will take seven months to reach Mars, like the others. If all goes well, Tianwen-1, or “quest for heavenly truth,” will look for underground water, if it’s present, as well as evidence of possible ancient life.
This isn’t China’s first attempt at Mars. In 2011, a Chinese orbiter accompanying a Russian mission was lost when the spacecraft failed to get out of Earth’s orbit after launching from Kazakhstan, eventually burning up in the atmosphere.
This time, China is going at it alone. It also is fast-tracking, launching an orbiter and rover on the same mission instead of stringing them out.
China’s secretive space program has developed rapidly in recent decades. Yang Liwei became the first Chinese astronaut in 2003, and last year, Chang’e-4 became the first spacecraft from any country to land on the far side of the moon.
Conquering Mars would put China in an elite club.
“There is a whole lot of prestige riding on this,” said Dean Cheng, an expert on Chinese aerospace programs at the Heritage Foundation in Washington.
Landing on Mars is notoriously difficult. Only the U.S. has successfully landed a spacecraft on Martian soil, doing it eight times since 1976. NASA’s InSight and Curiosity rovers still operate today. Six other spacecraft are exploring Mars from orbit: three American, two European and one from India.
Unlike the two other Mars missions launching this month, China has tightly controlled information about the program — even withholding any name for its rover. National security concerns led the U.S. to curb cooperation between NASA and China’s space program.
In an article published earlier this month in Nature Astronomy, mission chief engineer Wan Weixing said Tianwen-1 would slip into orbit around Mars in February and look for a landing site on Utopia Planitia — a plain where NASA has detected possible evidence of underground ice. Wan died in May from cancer.
The landing would then be attempted in April or May, according to the article. If all goes well, the 240-kilogram (530-pound) golf cart-sized, solar-powered rover is expected to operate for about three months, and the orbiter for two years.
Though small compared to America’s hulking, car-sized 1,025-kilogram (2,260-pound) Perseverance, it’s almost twice as big as the two rovers China has sent to the moon in 2013 and 2019. Perseverance is expected to operate for at least two years.
This Mars-launching season — which occurs every 26 months when Earth and Mars are at their closest — is especially busy.
The UAE spacecraft Amal, or Hope, which will orbit Mars but not land, is the Arab world’s first interplanetary mission. NASA’s Perseverance rover is up next.
“At no other time in our history have we seen anything like what is unfolding with these three unique missions to Mars. Each of them is a science and engineering marvel,” the Space Foundation’s chief executive officer Thomas Zelibor said in an online panel discussion earlier this week.
China’s road to Mars hit a few bumps: A Long March-5 rocket, nicknamed “Fat 5” because of its bulky shape, failed to launch earlier this year. The coronavirus pandemic forced scientists to work from home. In March, when instruments needed to be transported from Beijing to Shanghai, three team members drove 12 hours to deliver them.
While China is joining the U.S., Russia and Europe in creating a satellite-based global navigation system, experts say it isn’t trying to overtake the U.S. lead in space exploration.
Instead, Cheng of the Heritage Foundation said China is in a “slow race” with Japan and India to establish itself as Asia’s space power.
Poor Life on Mars (if there is any) – needs to wear a mask.
As soon as (if) China lands on Mars, you can bet they will claim that as part of their territory from hundreds of years ago and extend their ‘economic’ zone around it.
“As soon as (if) China lands on Mars, you can bet they will claim that as part of their territory from hundreds of years ago and extend their ‘economic’ zone around it.”
They claimed the galaxy and the next realm Mars is not even a drop in their bucket.
From martial law to Martian law
I hope they make it. I don’t want to be political. Too bad Wan couldn’t have survived to see this mission hopefully succeed.
Oh No!!!
Don’t let them bring their Virus to Mars!
What a truly despicable event. This genocidal Communist regime looks the other way as hundreds of millions live in poverty – including many kids – and starve on the streets. Yet, Emperor Xi and his henchmen can somehow find the money and resources for this pointless exercise.
Epic Failure.
How much you wanna bet China will “militarize” Mars?
If this was “just” a scientific mission I would be cheering it on. Unfortunately China’s entire space programme is deeply entwined with the military, ergo the rabid secrecy surrounding it and its objectives are very much other than a noble effort to understand the universe. There are long term military and political objectives which have nothing to do with benefiting mankind.
Why did they copy NASA’s multi-mode landing method? Did their spies only get the process, but not the “why”?
So they will declare Mars Chinese territory and demand a 9-dot line across the planetary system 😕
a bold attempt
To boldly go where no other mission has (boldly) gone before.
I always say “space is hard.” Accomplishments for peaceful research, fairly achieved, should be congratulated.
US probes should create patterns in the Mars ground of Winnie the Pooh which can be seen from Mars orbit to show support for China.
Just hope China realized that NASA doesn’t use the metric system, so all those numbers for the landing systems are in English units. We shall see.
China has the right to explore the solar system just like any other country. They do not need the Americans permission.
Never trust the CCP.
Yurt, no one suggested they do. Just questioned their actions and intentions.
gaihonjin, I have to disagree, you can ALWAYS trust the CCP to be disingenuous and up to something nefarious.
YuriOtaniToday 05:41 am JST
… They do not need the Americans permission.
But they need ( and steal ) American technology to explore the solar system.