China successfully launched its first Mars probe — named Tianwen-1 — on July 23, aiming to complete orbiting, landing and roving in a single mission.

A Long March-5 rocket, China’s largest and most powerful launch vehicle, carrying the spacecraft with a mass of about five tonnes, soared into the sky from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on the coast of southern China’s island province of Hainan.

About 36 minutes after the launch, the spacecraft, including an orbiter and a rover, was sent into the Earth-Mars transfer orbit. 

What are the objectives of the mission?

The journey to Mars will take six to seven months and the probe is expected to reach the Red Planet around February 2021.

After it enters Mars orbit, it will spend two to three months surveying potential landing sites using a high-resolution camera to prepare for the landing in May.

After landing, a rover will be released to conduct scientific exploration with an expected lifespan of at least 90 Martian days (about three months on Earth), and the orbiter, with a design life of one Martian year (about 687 days on Earth), will relay communications for the rover while conducting its own scientific detection.

The mission will study the Red Planet’s morphology and geological structure, soil characteristics and distribution of surface water ice, surface material composition, atmospheric ionosphere and surface climate and environment, as well as physical field and internal structure of Mars. 

China in space race

China in recent years has emerged as a major space power with manned space missions and landing a rover in the dark side of the moon. It is currently building a space station of its own.

China’s previous attempt to send an exploratory probe to Mars called Yinghuo-1, in a Russian spacecraft in 2011 failed as shortly after the launch it was declared lost and later burnt during re-entry.

The US, Russia, India and the EU have succeeded in sending missions to Mars regarded as the most complex space mission. 

India became the first Asian country to have successfully launched its Mars orbiter mission Mangalyaan, which entered the orbit of the red planet in 2014. India also became the first country to have entered the Martian orbit in its first attempt.

Three Mars missions in July

China’s Mars probe is the second such mission launched this month.

The United Arab Emirates launched its Mars mission — ‘Hope Probe’ — from Japan on July 20, in what is the Arab world’s first interplanetary mission.

The US space agency (NASA) aims to dispatch its next-generation rover, Perseverance, on July 30.

Why all three missions opted for launch in July?

Due to the long distance, the exploration of the red planet requires a precise launch period and it depends on proximity to Earth.

The timing of these launches is dictated by the opening of a one-month window in which Mars and Earth are in ideal alignment on the same side of the Sun, which minimises travel time and fuel use. 

In 2020, Mars is at its closest to Earth, at a distance of about 55 million km, in a window of about a month that opens once every 26 months.

All the three Mars missions are expected to reach the Red Planet around February 2021.

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