Tianwen 1 : China’s first Mars exploration mission to take place soon. The name was revealed by the Chinese space agency on Friday and said that the mission, Tianwen 1 will take place soon.
The China National Space Administration (CNSA) disclosed the mission name in a statement on Friday and named the program Tianwen which is China’s first Mars exploration mission.
“Tianwen” means “quest for heavenly truth.”
According to CNSA, the program was named after a long poem by ancient Chinese poet Qu Yuan.
Tianwen 1 : China’s first Mars Exploration Mission to take place soon
China completed its first public test of a Mars lander in November last year, keeping the country on track for an unmanned exploration mission to the red planet in 2020.
The space agency revealed that the mission to Mars will take place “in the coming months”.
So far, the United States and the former Soviet Union are the only two countries to land a spacecraft on Mars.
European Space Agency and India have successfully sent spacecraft to enter the planet’s orbit.
According to CNSA, the probe will study the soil, geological structure, environment and atmosphere of Mars.
The robotic probe will be made up of an orbiter, lander and a six-wheeled rover, which will have solar panels and carry 13 scientific instruments, according to CNSA. The administration said the probe is due to land on Mars before July 2021, after which the 200-kilogram (441-pound) machine will work for around three months.
Last year, China announced it had opened a Mars simulation base in Qinghai’s Qaidam Basin, a hyper-arid region in western China that is the highest desert on Earth and long considered one of the best parallels with the Martian surface on our own planet.
In 1970 China had sent its first satellite to the space, just after US had put the first man on the moon.
But after being slow in the space race, China started spending billions of dollars for reseach and training. Along with the Mars mission, China is also pursuing lunar exploration.
The Chang’e-4 lunar probe successfully touched down on the far side of the moon last year, a historic first and major achievement for China’s space program.
Preliminary plans are underway for a manned lunar mission in the 2030s. If successful, this would make China only the second country, after the United States, to put a human on the moon.