China aims to be the second nation to land a rover successfully on Mars after its Thursday rocket launch.
The Long March 5 carrier rocket blasted off from Hainan, an island province of China located in the south of the country. According to Chinese-run Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, the launch was a success.
The corporation said that about 30 minutes after liftoff, “the spacecraft, including an orbiter and a rover, was sent into the Earth-Mars transfer orbit, embarking on an almost seven-month journey to the red planet.”
The mission’s chief scientist said that the probe will, among other things, investigate surface soil characteristics and map aspects of the planet.
“The main task of Tianwen-1 is to perform a global and extensive survey of the entire planet using the orbiter and to send the rover to surface locations of scientific interests to conduct detailed investigations with high accuracy and resolution,” the scientist said.
#China successfully launched its Mars mission #Tianwen1. Liu Tongjie, spokesman for the mission, says:” It will help China achieve a significant technological leap in its deep space exploration and establish an independent deep-space exploration engineering system. pic.twitter.com/2kqV9g5TId
— T-House (@thouse_opinions) July 23, 2020
The United States was the first nation to put a functioning rover on Mars in 1997 when the Sojourner rover touched down. The U.S. is now planning to launch NASA’s Mars Perseverance Rover as soon as July 30. That mission will attempt to bring back soil samples from the rust-colored planet, which is located more than 30 million miles away.
In 2011, Russia attempted to send its own Mars rover to the Red Planet, although it came crashing down into the Pacific Ocean in early 2012 after getting trapped in Earth’s orbit for about two months after its launch.
