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From the Moon to Mars: China's long march in space
by Staff Writers
Beijing (AFP) July 23, 2020

China launches Mars probe in space race with US
Wenchang, China (AFP) July 23, 2020 - China launched a rover to Mars on Thursday, a journey coinciding with a similar US mission as the powers take their rivalry into deep space.

The two countries are taking advantage of a period when Earth and Mars are favourably aligned for a short journey, with the US spacecraft due to lift off on July 30.

The Chinese mission is named Tianwen-1 ("Questions to Heaven") -- a nod to a classical poem that has verses about the cosmos.

Engineers and other employees cheered at the launch site on the southern island of Hainan as it lifted off into blue sky aboard a Long March 5 -- China's biggest space rocket.

Site commander Zhang Xueyu declared the mission a success on state broadcaster CCTV.

The five-tonne Tianwen-1 is expected to arrive in February 2021 after a seven-month, 55-million-kilometre (34-million-mile) voyage.

The mission includes a Mars orbiter, a lander and a rover that will study the planet's soil.

"As a first try for China, I don't expect it to do anything significant beyond what the US has already done," said Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

It is a crowded field. The United Arab Emirates launched a probe on Monday that will orbit Mars once it reaches the Red Planet.

But the race to watch is between the United States and China, which has worked furiously to try and match Washington's supremacy in space.

NASA, the American space agency, has already sent four rovers to Mars since the late 1990s.

The next one, Perseverance, is an SUV-sized vehicle that will look for signs of ancient microbial life, and gather rock and soil samples with the goal of bringing them back to Earth on another mission in 2031.

Tianwen-1 is "broadly comparable to Viking in its scope and ambition", said McDowell, referring to NASA's Mars landing missions in 1975-1976.

- Catching up -

After watching the United States and the Soviet Union lead the way during the Cold War, China has poured billions of dollars into its military-led space programme.

"China joining (the Mars race) will change the situation dominated by the US for half a century," said Chen Lan, an independent analyst at GoTaikonauts.com, which specialises in China's space programme.

China has made huge strides in the past decade, sending a human into space in 2003.

The Asian powerhouse has laid the groundwork to assemble a space station by 2022 and gain a permanent foothold in Earth orbit.

China has already sent two rovers to the Moon. With the second, China became the first country to make a successful soft landing on the far side.

The Moon missions gave China experience in operating spacecraft beyond Earth orbit, but Mars is another story.

The much greater distance means "a bigger light travel time, so you have to do things more slowly as the radio signal round trip time is large," said McDowell.

It also means "you need a more sensitive ground station on Earth because the signals will be much fainter," he added, noting that there is a greater risk of failure.

China has upgraded its monitoring stations in the far-western Xinjiang region and northeastern Heilongjiang province to meet the Mars mission requirements, state news agency Xinhua reported last week.

The majority of the dozens of missions sent by the US, Russia, Europe, Japan and India to Mars since 1960 ended in failure.

Tianwen-1 is not China's first attempt to go to Mars.

A previous mission with Russia in 2011 ended prematurely as the launch failed.

Now, Beijing is trying on its own.

"As long as (Tianwen) safely lands on the Martian surface and sends back the first image, the mission will... be a big success," Chen said.

China launched a rover to Mars on Thursday, another milestone for its space programme after putting humans into orbit and landing a probe on the Moon.

It is among a trio of nations, along with the United Arab Emirates and the United States, launching missions to the Red Planet this month, taking advantage of a period when Mars and Earth are favourably aligned.

Beijing's space programme has made huge strides in recent years as it tries to catch up with the United States and Russia.

Here are five things to know about the programme:

- 'Questions to Heaven' -

China's Mars probe lifted off on July 23 from the southern island of Hainan.

The mission was dubbed Tianwen-1 ("Questions to Heaven") in a nod to a classical Chinese poem that has verses about the cosmos.

The probe aims to go into Martian orbit, land on the planet and release a small rover to conduct research on its surface.

The craft will travel at least 55 million kilometres (34 million miles) to reach its destination. It will arrive seven months after launch, in February, according to an official.

- Without Russia this time -

It is not China's first attempt to go to Mars.

A previous mission with Russia in 2011 failed because the Russian launcher was unable to get the craft into a transfer orbit to slingshot towards the Red Planet.

The hardware partially disintegrated as it later crashed back to Earth.

Following that failure, Beijing decided to try again on its own.

"Its purposes are not different from those of other countries: develop the capability, explore the universe... and finally, create political influence and national prestige," said Chen Lan, an independent analyst at GoTaikonauts.com, which specialises in news about China's space programme.

- Six-wheeled rover -

The rover, weighing 240 kilogrammes (530 pounds), has six wheels and four solar panels, Chinese state media reported.

The rover will roam Mars for three months, according to Sun Zezhou, chief engineer of the probe.

The machine is supposed to analyse the planet's soil and atmosphere, take photos, chart maps and look for signs of past life.

- Jade Rabbits -

China sent two rovers to the Moon, Jade Rabbit One and Two (Yutu in Chinese), in 2013 and 2019.

The second rover made a historic soft landing on the far side of the Moon, making China the first country to do so.

"The lunar Yutu rovers are good practice in many ways for a Martian rover. The terrain is broadly similar," Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told AFP.

But the distance from Earth means communication will be slower, McDowell said, adding that the risk of problems increases with such a long trip.

- Space race -

China has poured billions of dollars into its space programme to catch up with the US, Russia and Europe.

In 2003, it became the third nation -- after the US and Russia -- to send a human into space.

It has launched a slew of satellites into orbit, completing a constellation in June to set up its own navigation system, Beidou, to rival the US GPS system.

The Asian powerhouse plans to assemble a space station by 2022 in Earth orbit.

And China is aiming even higher, hoping to become only the second nation to send humans to the Moon a decade from now.


Related Links
The Chinese Space Program - News, Policy and Technology
China News from SinoDaily.com


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DRAGON SPACE
Tianwen 1 probe to soon blast off for Mars
Beijing (XNA) Jul 16, 2020
Tianwen 1, a Chinese Mars probe, has been transported to Hainan province, where it is set to be launched atop a Long March 5 carrier rocket in the coming days, according to the China Academy of Space Technology. The academy said in a statement on Tuesday that the spacecraft is now undergoing prelaunch preparations at the Wenchang Space Launch Center in Wenchang before setting out on China's first independent Mars exploration without elaborating. According to the academy's parent, China Aeros ... read more

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