CHINA SENDS MARS MISSION IN SPACE RACE WITH U.S.
BEIJING: China on Thursday launched its first ever Mars probe, which aims to have a space station by 2022. If successful, the probe, named Tianwen-1, will join a global community of explorers on Mars, hailing from the US, Europe, Russia, India, and soon the UAE, which launched a Mars mission on July 20. A Long March-5 rocket reportedly carried the spacecraft from the Wenchang launch site in Hainan province. The rover, expected to work on the planet for 90 Mars days (over three months on the Earth), will carry out exploration and research on geomorphic landforms, Bao Weimin, an academic with the Chinese Academy of Sciences told Xinhua in June.