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China has launched its first rover mission to Mars.
The six-wheeled robot, encapsulated in a protective probe, was pulled from Earth by a Long March 5 rocket from the Wenchang spaceport on Hainan Island at 12:40 local time (04:40 GMT).
It should orbit the red planet in February.
Called Tianwen-1, or “Questions to Heaven,” the rover will not attempt to land on the surface for another two to three months.
This wait-and-see strategy was successfully used by American Viking landers in the 1970s. It will allow engineers to assess weather conditions on Mars before attempting what will be a dangerous descent.
Tianwen-1 is one of three missions that depart for Mars in the space of 11 days.
On Monday, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) launched its Hope satellite toward the Red Planet. And in a week from now, the United States space agency (NASA) aims to ship its next-generation scout vehicle, Perseverance.
Tianwen-1’s Long March rocket made a perfect escape in the bright sunlight.
Zhang Xueyu, the commander of the Hainan base, told the jubilant mission technicians that the launch had been carried out entirely in accordance with the plan.
“According to the Aerospace Control Center, the Long March 5 Y-4 rocket is in normal flight, and the probe to Mars has precisely entered the preset orbit. I now declare that the launch of China’s first Mars exploration mission It was a complete success, “he said. said.
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Work: The Tianwen-1 rover is designed to run for at least 90 Martian days.
The target landing location for the Chinese mission will be a flat plain within the Utopia impact basin, just north of the equator of Mars. The rover will study the geology of the region, on the surface and just below it.
Tianwen-1 closely resembles NASA’s Spirit and Opportunity rovers from the 2000s. It weighs about 240kg and works with foldable solar panels.
A tall mast carries cameras to take photos and aid navigation; Five additional instruments will help assess the mineralogy of local rocks and look for any water ice.
However, this surface investigation is really only half the mission, because the cruiser that is driving the rover to Mars will also study the planet from orbit, using a set of seven remote sensing instruments.
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NASA-JPL
NASA’s 1976 Viking-2 mission also landed in Utopia Planitia
The historical statistics for the exploration of the red planet are well known: approximately half of all companies have failed. In fact, China’s first effort to send a satellite, Yinghuo-1, to the dusty world stalled in Earth orbit when its Russian carrier stage failed and fell back into the Pacific Ocean.
So far, only the Americans have managed to run long-running operations on Mars (the Soviet Mars-3 and Beagle-2 missions from Europe fell but failed shortly thereafter).
However, China can rely on the successes of its two recent Chang’e Yutu lunar rovers, the second of which made the first soft landing on the other side of the Moon last year.
The country’s engineers will believe they are now ready to face the infamous “seven minutes of terror,” the time it takes for a spacecraft to make the dangerous journey from the top of Mars’s atmosphere to the ground.
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“Entry, deceleration and landing (EDL) is a very difficult (process). We believe that China’s EDL process can still be successful, and the spacecraft can safely land,” said the mission’s spokesperson. Liu Tongjie, quoted before the launch by Reuters news. agency.
Tianwen-1 will use a combination of capsule, parachute, and retro rocket to slow down entry speed and slow down to a stop at the surface. If all goes well, the landing gear will deploy a ramp to allow the rover to start traversing the Martian Plain.
Chinese scientists would like to get at least 90 days of Martian service from the robot. A day, or Sun, on Mars lasts 24 hours and 39 minutes.
Dr. Rain Irshad is a leader in autonomous systems at RAL Space in the UK and participates in NASA’s Insight landing on Mars.
“It is incredibly exciting to see what China is doing,” he said.
“Your space agency was formed only in 1993, and yet here they are, less than 30 years later, sending an orbiter, lander, and rover to Mars.
“But they underwent a training program with their Chang’e missions on the Moon. It has been very impressive how they have been carrying out the lunar missions one after another,” he told BBC News.
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Reuters
A model of the rover shows that it looks similar to NASA’s Spirit and Opportunity vehicles.
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