The summer of Mars continues as the second launch in July is expected on Thursday. This time, China intends to start its first successful mission on the red planet, Tianwen-1.
The launch attempt follows the successful start of the Orbiter Hope journey, a spacecraft built by the United Arab Emirates, which launched from Japan on Monday. Like the Emirates, China takes advantage of the short window every 26 months or so when Earth and Mars are closer than usual.
A third mission, NASA’s Perseverance rover, is scheduled to launch next week. If all three missions take off successfully, they will hit Mars next February.
When is the China launch and how can I see it?
The mission will take off from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center on Hainan Island in southern China. The Chinese space agency has not announced a date or time, and the official media only stated that the launch will occur between the end of July and the beginning of August.
But space enthusiasts and journalists on Twitter have signaled warnings to aviation authorities about the launch of a rocket over areas south and east of the Wenchang site. That notification is scheduled for midnight at 1:26 am ET on Thursday, July 23, which could be the window for Tianwen-1 takeoff.
China has not announced plans to broadcast the launch live. If the takeoff video is available, we’ll share it here.
What is China sending to Mars?
The Tianwen-1 mission is named after a poem by Qu Yuan, who lived from the 4th to the 3rd century BC. C., and it is translated as “Questions to heaven” or “Heavenly questions”.
Includes an orbiter, lander, and scout vehicle. While other countries have taken a phased approach to visiting Mars, first an orbiter, then a lander, and then a scout, China emphasizes that it will attempt to operate all of these components for the first time at once.
The orbiter, according to four scientists involved in the mission, will study Mars and its atmosphere for about a Martian year, or 687 days on Earth. In addition to two cameras, it carries an underground radar, a detector to study the Martian magnetic field and three other scientific instruments.
The orbiter will also serve as a relay back to Earth to communicate with the mobile component of the mission. That robotic explorer will also carry cameras, penetrating radars, and other instruments. Its mission is to last about 90 Martian days.
The rover will attempt to land in the Utopia Planitia region in the Martian latitudes of the northern half. NASA’s Viking 2 mission landed there in 1976. In addition to a Soviet mission in 1971 that lost contact after less than two minutes, only the United States has successfully landed on Mars in one piece.
Previous studies using data from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter showed that Utopia Planitia has a water ice cap equivalent to that found in Lake Superior on Earth. One of the goals of the Tianwen-1 mission is to better understand the distribution of this ice, which future human colonists on Mars could use to sustain themselves.
Has China ever tried to reach Mars?
In 2011, China took its first shot at Mars, and was unlucky.
Yinghuo-1, an orbiter, was paired with a Russian mission that was to study Phobos, one of the two small Martian moons. But the Russian rocket carrying both spacecraft did not work long after launch, and was unable to escape the gravity of our planet. Both spaceships eventually burned up in the atmosphere.
What else has China accomplished in space?
While the Yinghuo-1 incident was a setback, China has consistently moved to the top tier of space-capable nations in the past two decades. Its space program is one of the few that have launched their own astronauts and space stations to orbit. China has also landed rovers on the moon twice.
One of those missions, Chang’e-4, landed on the other side of the moon in January 2019, which no other country has done. Her robot rover, Yutu-2, is still exploring the far side of the moon and aiding scientific discovery about the composition of the moon.
What else is going to Mars this summer?
The Emirates Mars Mission mission successfully took off on a Japanese rocket on Monday.
The UAE space program is modest, and its attempt to join the ranks of countries that have reached Mars is part of an ambitious effort to inspire young Emiratis to pursue careers in science and technology.
His Hope spacecraft will orbit Mars for several years, helping scientists study the planet’s climate cycles.
If China’s Tianwen-1 takes off successfully, the third mission to Mars in the summer will be NASA’s Perseverance rover. It is slated to launch on July 30 after technical issues delayed previous takeoffs.
The robotic explorer would be NASA’s fifth rover on Mars, and is very similar to Curiosity, which is now exploring the Gale crater. He carries different scientific instruments and will explore the Jezero Crater, a dry lake that scientists believe could be a good target for looking for fossilized evidence of the extinct Martian microbial life.
The mission will also attempt a new scoop on the red planet: flying a helicopter in the dim Martian atmosphere. The rover will leave NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter shortly after landing. It will then attempt a series of test flights in the air as thin as the upper reaches of Earth’s atmosphere, with the aim of demonstrating that Mars can be explored through the air and also on the ground.
A fourth mission, the Russian-European joint rover Rosalind Franklin, would also launch this summer. But the technical hurdles, compounded by the coronavirus pandemic, could not be overcome in time. It is now slated to launch in 2022.
