Tianwen-1, China’s spacecraft to Mars, enters the orbit of ‘Red planet’

Chinese
spacecraft Tianwen-1 entered the orbit of the planet Mars on Wednesday marking
the latest development in Beijing’s highly ambitious space mission to land a
rover on its ground and collect data pertaining to underground water and
plausible signs of ancient life. The mission was launched
from southern China in July last year, reports AFP citing state media.

“China’s probe Tianwen-1 successfully entered the orbit around Mars on Wednesday after a nearly seven-month voyage from Earth,” the Xinhua News Agency said in a brief report.

Tianwen-1, which is expected to touch the red planet in May this year, was launched around the same time with the US’ rival space project Mars 2020.

Also Read | Ever wondered what Mars sounds like? NASA is giving us a chance to hear that

China’s announcement of Mars orbital insertion came hours after the contender UAE confirmed its spacecraft ‘Hope’s’ entry into the orbits of the red planet.

For those unversed, three separate Mars missions are underway with UAE’s ‘Hope’, USA’s ‘Perseverance Rover‘ and China’s ‘Tianwen-1’ contending to reach the Mars.

Notably, if final landing of Tianwen-1 is successful, it will make China the first country to orbit, land and deploy a rover on Mars, said Chi Wang, head of the National Space Science Center at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in a research note.

Explaining the intricacies of the mission, Chi further wrote, “Scientifically,
Tianwen-1 is the most comprehensive mission to investigate the Martian morphology,
geology, mineralogy, space environment and soil and water-ice
distribution.”

Chinese space experts hope to land the 240-kilogram (530-pound) rover in May in
Utopia, which is a massive impact basin on Mars. Its orbiter will last for a Martian
year.

However, more than that China’s space mission aims to establish a crewed space station by 2022 and eventually put a man on the moon.

Also Read | RocketLab aims to beat NASA in search for life in Venus

As far as the current progressions are concerned, Tianwen-1 has already sent back its first black and white image of Mars, that showed geological features including the Schiaparelli crater and the
Valles Marineris, a vast stretch of canyons on the Martian surface.

Notably, Tianwen-1 is not the first Chinese spacecraft to attempt to reach Mars. China’s previous mission with Russia in 2011 ended in a failure to launch.