China has now achieved what only the US and the Soviet Union did before it: a successful landing on Mars.
Editor’s note: The Zhurong spacecraft in China’s Tianwen-1 mission successfully landed on Mars on the morning of May 15. A day earlier, journalist Steven Lee Myers had an article analyzing China’s space race. Here is the article content.
Model of China’s first space station at the 2010 exhibition in Zhuhai city. Photo: Kin Cheung / Associated Press China has now achieved what the US and the Soviet Union did before: a successful landing on Mars. After orbiting the planet since February, the Tianwen 1 rover sent a vehicle to land on the surface of Mars. The probe will join three NASA spacecraft that are surveying Mars. China’s Mars mission may seem less appealing than NASA’s latest mission, because it’s essentially repeating the feats Americans achieved decades ago. But it represents another milestone in China’s ambitions to transform itself into a “space power,” as President Xi Jinping announced in April. Many potential milestones lie ahead. Conquer the Moon In January 2019, China became the first country to land a probe on the dark side of the Moon. This is China’s second successful moon landing, after one in 2013. At that time, China sent a rover on the lunar surface and it is still operating to this day, far exceeding the initial 3 month expectation. In late April, it roamed nearly half a mile from its starting point in the Von Kármán crater near the moon’s south pole, according to Chinese television. In December 2020, China sent another spacecraft to the Moon. It shoveled nearly 2kg of rock back to Earth. This is the first lunar specimen since those collected by the Soviet Union during the Luna 24 mission in 1976. Some samples are on display in Beijing. China names its lunar probes Chang’e with serial numbers. Three more will hit the road in 2027, with more flying probes and even 3D printing trials in space. These missions aim to lay the groundwork for a Moon base and astronaut visits in the 2030s. To date, only the US Apollo program has sent people to the Moon. In March, Russia’s space agency Roscosmos said it would work with China to build a lunar research station, though it did not give details of any joint plans. Enemy space station China’s launch of the main module for its latest orbiting space station in April attracted more international attention than expected for unwarranted reasons. After reaching orbit, the main booster fell ominously back to Earth: “uncontrolled re-entry”. Debris landed in the Indian Ocean in May, nearly losing the Maldives and sparking criticism over how China carried out its heaviest rocket launch, the Long March 5B. More similar cases will continue. This is the first of 11 missions needed to build China’s third and most ambitious space station by the end of 2022. Two more Long March 5B rockets carry additional modules and new ones. Variations with smaller parts. Next June will have four missions to be carried out, sending Chinese astronauts back into space after more than four years. 
Watch the launch of the rocket carrying the Mars probe Tianwen 1 in Wenchang, China. Photo: AP China’s first two space stations are short-lived prototypes, but the station is intended to be operational for a decade or so. The International Space Station, jointly developed by the US, Russia and other countries, is nearing the end of its expected life cycle in 2024. What happens after that remains unclear. NASA has proposed keeping the station operational for several more years; Russia has announced it intends to withdraw its troops by 2025. If the station is shut down, China could be the only country with a space station for a while. This Thien Cung station will be able to accommodate 3 astronauts for long-term missions and 6 astronauts for shorter periods. China has chosen a team of 18 astronauts, some of them civilians (only one is a woman). The first three are expected to spend three months in space, surpassing the 33-day record set by Chinese astronauts in 2016. Hao Chun, director of China’s manned space agency, told the press that astronauts from other countries would be allowed to visit, under the docking mechanism “in line with China’s standards”. “. Some foreign astronauts are prepared to learn Mandarin. Conquer Mars The Mars mission is trying to achieve feats that NASA has achieved for many years. The Tianwen 1 spacecraft has reached orbit around the planet and has now safely brought one to the surface. The Soviet Union was the first country to send a spacecraft to Mars in 1971, but seconds after touching down, the lander stopped communicating, possibly due to a sandstorm. It transmits an incomplete or undecipherable image. Since then, several other countries’ attempts to reach the surface have failed. Only the US has succeeded in landing on Mars. China tried to send an orbiter to Mars in 2011, but the Russian rocket carrying it failed to get out of orbit and both crashed back to Earth. China’s Tianwen Orbiter has surveyed Mars and its landing site, Utopia Planitia, a large basin in the northern hemisphere where NASA’s Viking 2 landed in 1976. The Zhurong rover is named after a position. god of fire, will conduct a number of experiments studying the topography, geology and atmosphere of the planet. China says it plans to send a second lander to Mars in 2028 and eventually return samples from the planet to Earth. That’s a goal NASA and the European Space Agency are hoping to achieve by 2031. China’s mission could happen this decade, setting up a potential race. In addition to the Mars mission, China is planning a 10-year mission to collect samples from an asteroid that passed by the comet. Simultaneously in orbit for Venus and Jupiter. In 2024, they plan to launch a telescope with an orbit similar to Hubble, which was first launched in 1990. Hoang Thanh ( According to the New York Times)
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