China has launched its Mars mission to show it’s technologically advanced developments and to join the US in successfully landing a spacecraft on the red planet.
The spacecraft Tianwen-1 was launched on a “Long March-5 carrier rocket” from Hainan Island, a south-coast region of the mainland. It took off on Thursday at about 12.40 pm local time (0540 BST).
The rocket was flying normally for about 45 minutes said, Zhan Xueyu said, “The Mars rover has accurately entered the scheduled orbit,” he stated to state media. The rocket is expected to arrive in the orbit of Mars in February. After waiting for a few months to have the right atmospheric conditions, it will land on the planet.
The stay of the rocket on the planet will be for 90 days, where it will do its geological and atmospheric research of the planet. And will also look forward to the presence of water.
“It’s not been easy, we have been working on the probe for more than ten years with several generations of people dedicated to it, everyone has given so much for it” stated Li Dong, Chief Rocket Designer. The launching of the spacecraft was quite successful, and the space bugs were allowed to watch its live launching from across the Bay.
This is the second spacecraft that was launched for orbiting the Mars this week, as UAE launched its Mars Mission on Monday from Japan, being the Arab’s first interplanetary mission.
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The US is also planning to launch Perseverance, its most sophisticated Mars rover so far, from Cape Canaveral in Florida next week. They all are launching in this period of Mars launching season, which occurs every 26 months when Mars and Earth are at their closest.
This is not China’s first attempt to reach for Planet Mars, in 2011, with the collaboration with the Russian mission. China launched its spacecraft from Kazakhstan but it was unsuccessful in going out of Earth’s atmosphere and eventually burned up and the attempt was not a successful one.