(Xinhua) China launched on Thursday a Mars test aimed at completing orbiting, landing and rolling in a single mission, and taking the first step in its solar system planetary exploration.
The Wenchang Spatial Launch Site on the South Chinese province of Hainan, at 12:41 pm, brought a Long March-5 rocket, China's largest launch vehicle, carrying spacecraft massive about 5 tons to the sky. (Time for Beijing).
Approximately 36 minutes later, according to the Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA), the spacecraft, including a rover and an orbiter, were sent into the transmission orbit of Earth-Mars on a route of nearly seven months to the Red Planet.
Tianwen-1 is China's first Mars mission which means Heaven's questions, which is a poem written by Qu Yuan, one of ancient China 's greatest poets. The name means the perseverance of the Chinese nation to pursue truth and science and to explore nature and the world, said the CNSA.
The successful launch is just the first step in China's Mars mission and we look forward to successfully completing each of the many important steps of the long journey, Geng Yan, a CNSA officer at Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center, says.
Slowdown near Mars, orbiting, separating from the orbiter the landing platform and the rover, lifting softly and roving are the key steps.
Around February 2021 the ship is expected to reach Mars. Once it enters Mars, the survey of potential landing sites with a high-resolution camera in May will last two to three months.
The soft landing, an independent test process that lasts seven to eight minutes, will be the most difficult task of the mission. The sensor uses his aerodynamic shape, parachute and rush to slow down and tamp up the legs, Geng said.
After the landing, a rover is released for scientific exploration and the rover will relay communication to a rover while performing its own scientific detection for at least 90 Martian day (about three months in Earth) and the orbiter will have a design life of a Martian year (about 687 days in earth).
Source: Xinhua
