China launches its first unmanned mission to Mars
WENCHANG, China, (Reuters) – China successfully launched an unmanned probe to Mars on Thursday in its first independent mission to another planet. This demonstrated a display of its technological prowess and ambition to join an elite club of space-faring nations.
China’s largest carrier rocket, the Long March 5 Y-4, blasted off with the probe from Wenchang Space Launch Centre on the southern island of Hainan.
In 2020, Mars is at its closest to Earth, at a distance of about 55 million km (34 million miles), in a window of about a month that opens once every 26 months.
The probe is expected to reach Mars in February where it will attempt to land in Utopia Planitia, a vast plain in the northern hemisphere, and deploy a rover to explore the planet for 90 days.
If successful, the Tianwen-1, or “Questions to Heaven,” the name of a poem written two millennia ago, will make China the first country to orbit, land and deploy a rover in its inaugural mission.
There will be challenges ahead as the craft nears Mars,
Liu Tongjie, spokesman for the mission, told reporters ahead of the launch.
“When arriving in the vicinity of Mars, it is very critical to decelerate,” he warned.
Liu said the probe would orbit Mars for about two and a half months and look for an opportunity to enter its atmosphere and make a soft landing.
“Entering, deceleration and landing is a very difficult (process),” he said.
Since 1960, half of all the 50-plus missions to Mars including flybys failed, due to technical problems.
China previously made a Mars bid in 2011 with Russia, but the Russian spacecraft carrying the probe failed to exit the Earth’s orbit and disintegrated over the Pacific Ocean.
Eight spacecraft – American, European and Indian – are either orbiting Mars or on its surface with other missions underway or planned.
The United Arab Emirates launched a mission to Mars on Monday, an orbiter that will study the planet’s atmosphere.