New Delhi (NVI): China today launched its first independent and unmanned Mars probe, named ‘Tianwen-1’ with an aim to complete orbiting, landing and roving in one mission.
If successful, Tianwen-1 will make China the first country to orbit, land and deploy a rover in its inaugural mission.
China launched a Mars probe on Thursday, aiming to complete orbiting, landing and roving in one mission, and taking the first step in its planetary exploration of the solar system pic.twitter.com/2GbV6CYGFn
— China Xinhua News (@XHNews) July 23, 2020
A Long March-5 rocket, which China claims is its largest launch vehicle, left for space carrying the spacecraft with a mass of about 5 tonnes, according to Xinhua news agency. The rocket was launched from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on the coast of southern China’s island Hainan province at around 12:41 pm.
About 36 minutes later, 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, according to the China National Space Administration (CNSA).
The ambitious Mars mission is named ‘Tianwen-1’ (which means Questions to Heaven in Mandarin) from a poem written by Qu Yuan (about 340-278 BC), a leading poet of ancient China.
China has launched its ambitious mission to Mars amid the Covid-19 pandemic, which it has been able to control to some extent, and the worst floods it is experiencing in decades, as a show of strength, especially to the West.
Depending on the success of the mission, China will join the international community of explorers on Mars, comprising the US, Europe, Russia, India.
The UAE has also launched its first mission to the red planet on July 20, which makes another country that may join the community. The Arab country launched ‘Hope Probe’ mission to Mars as a UAE spacecraft blasted off to the red planet from Japan.
-ARK
