Chinese people watch the rocket that sent the Tianwen-1 probe into space. Photo: AP The China National Space Administration (CNSA) announced on May 15 that the Tianwen-1 (Tianwen-1) probe had successfully landed on the surface of the “Red Planet”. “China has left its footprints on Mars for the first time, an important step for our field of space exploration,” Xinhua news agency said. The New York Times reported that since 1976, the US has successfully landed on Mars nine times. The Soviet Union in 1971 became the first country to send a lander to the surface of the Red Planet, but the mission was unsuccessful because the probe then stopped transmitting. Recently, China has continuously recorded new space science achievements. On the morning of April 29, China launched the first module to build its own Space Station (CSS). It seems that to catch up with the US and Russia, China’s ambitions do not stop at Mars and the space station. Moon Dream In January 2019, China was the first country to land a probe on the dark side of the Moon. The dark side can be understood as the night side of the Moon while the other side is observable from Earth due to receiving sunlight and is the day side. This is China’s second successful landing on the lunar surface, the first being in 2013. China is the third country in the world to successfully explore the Moon, after the US and Russia. In December 2020, China sent another probe to the Moon, which is Chang’e-5. On December 16, 2020, the Chang’e-5 spacecraft landed in Inner Mongolia carrying samples from the lunar surface. This is the first time scientists have collected samples from the lunar surface, after the Soviet Luna-24 mission in 1976. Moon samples brought back by Chang’e-5 are on display at the National Museum of China in Beijing. Photo: Getty Images China plans to launch three more spacecraft to the Moon by 2027. Beijing’s goal is to establish a base on the Moon that can be accessed by astronauts within the next decade. In March, the Russian space agency Roscosmos said it would cooperate with China in building a research station on the Moon. However, the two countries have yet to announce the details of this coordination plan. Serious competition The fragmentation of China’s Long March 5B missile falling into the Indian Ocean in May has drawn much criticism from international public opinion. In April, this Long March 5B rocket sent the core module into space to build China’s first space station. In the near future, China plans to carry out 11 more launches to complete the space station by the end of 2022. The International Space Station (ISS) jointly developed by Russia, the US and many countries will “retire” in 2024. It is still unclear what will happen next. The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) advocates keeping the ISS operational for a few more years. Russia meanwhile announced it would withdraw from 2025. In the event that the ISS is completely shut down, China will be the only country that owns the space station. Accordingly, the Chinese space station named Thien Cung is expected to be able to host three astronauts operating at the same time. China has selected a team of 18 astronauts, including only one woman. The first three astronauts are expected to spend three months in space. Mars and more Model of China’s first space station. Photo: AP China announced that it plans to make one more Mars landing by 2028 and bring samples from the planet back to Earth for study. NASA and the European Space Agency are also embarking on this work in the hope that the US Perseverance probe, which landed on Mars in February, can bring soil and rock from Mars to Earth by 2031. This is said to be more likely to lead to a race between the parties. China also plans to take 10 years to collect samples from the comet. In addition, the country also intends to set up spacecraft to orbit around Venus and Jupiter. By 2024, China plans to launch a space telescope like the US Hubble, which has been in orbit since 1990. On China Space Day (April 24), President Xi Jinping wrote a letter to senior space scientists, encouraging them to “intensify and expand space exploration and rapidly quickly turn China into a space power.

Photo: India Express It is known that on May 15, China confirmed that Tiawen-1 had successfully dropped the Zurong rover to the surface of Mars. This is a historic milestone that makes China the second country to successfully launch a probe on the Red Planet. In the past, only NASA has succeeded in landing and operating probes on the red planet. (The Soviet Mars 3 spacecraft landed on Mars in 1971 and remained in contact for only about 20 seconds.) The landing took place at Utopia Planitia, a flat land on Mars and the same area where NASA’s Viking 2 rover landed in 1976. After landing, the lander dropped the Zhurong rover – Powered six-wheeled robot named after the god of fire in ancient Chinese mythology. The spacecraft carries an integrated toolkit, including two cameras, a Mars subsurface probe radar, a Mars magnetic field detector and a Martian meteorological tracker. “This is the hardest place to land in the solar system,” said Emily Lakdawalla, author of “The Design and Engineering of Curiosity.” China’s success in its first attempt indicates that it is one of the most capable space agencies.” The European Space Agency also tried to land on Mars in 2003, but its Beagle 2 probe had problems. The ExoMars Schiaparelli spacecraft – another ESA (European Space Agency) effort also crashed in 2016 after software mis-estimated its altitude during a landing attempt. Photo: The Verge The Tianwen-1 spacecraft launched from Wenchang Launch Site in Hainan Province, China last July, embarking on a seven-month trip to Mars. China said that “Tianwen-1 has been operating normally since it entered the orbit of the Red Planet,” the China National Space Administration (CNSA) said in a statement on the morning of May 15. CNSA revealed that Tianwen-1 has collected a large amount of data and photos taken from the orbit of Mars. Andrew Jones, a journalist covering China’s activities in space, said that Tiawen-1 has been exploring the Utopia Planitia landing site for more than three months while orbiting Mars. Now, after a successful landing, the Zhurong rover will embark on a mission that will last at least three months to study Mars’ climate and geology. “The main mission of the Tiawen-1 mission is to conduct a comprehensive and extensive survey of the entire planet using orbiters and to bring the probes to surface locations of great scientific interest. focused to conduct detailed investigations with precision and high resolution,” the leading scientists wrote in Nature Astronomy last year. It is known that this expedition vehicle weighs about 240kg, nearly double the weight of China’s previous Yuto Moon. The CNSA said last month: “The Mars rover Zhurong is hoped to ignite the fire of China’s interplanetary exploration and guide humanity into the vast unknowns of outer space.” Photo: The Verge Before Tiawen-1 successfully landed on Mars, the United States also successfully landed 5 rovers on the surface of the Red Planet. More recently, on February 20, 2021, NASA’s Perseverance probe passed through the atmosphere of Mars and landed on the planet on a historic mission to recover rocks to help answer the question. whether life ever existed on Mars. Although this CNSA project is more than four decades behind NASA, this success of China shows that its space engineers are rapidly closing the gap with the US. Tiawen-1 marked a big step for China in the field of space exploration. Previously, China also became the first country to successfully land and operate a probe in the dark side of the Moon in 2019. Recently, China also successfully launched its first core module. Chinese space station. In the future, this will be inhabited by groups of astronauts in space. Earlier this year, China, in partnership with Russia, announced plans to build a space station on the surface of the Moon.

The Global Times (China) on the morning of May 15 reported on the successful landing on Mars of the Tianwen 1 mission. According to RT (Russia), the Tianwen 1 (Tianwen-1) spacecraft of the China National Space Administration (CNSA) was successfully launched from Wenchang Launch Site on July 23, 2020 and orbited Mars since February 10 this year. This interplanetary mission is China’s second attempt to reach the “Red Planet” after the 2011 Mars mission of the Huang Huo 1 (Yinghuo-1) probe. Citing CNSA sources, Chinese state media confirmed that the Tianwen 1 spacecraft successfully landed the Zhu Rong (Zurong) rover on the Martian surface on the morning of May 15. Thien Van 1, weighing 5,000kg, includes an orbiter, a lander and a golf cart-sized rover called Chuc Dung, named after an ancient fire god in the god of fire. Chinese phone. Carrying the Chuc Dung rover, the lander endured “seven minutes of horror” as it plowed through the Martian atmosphere on a parachute support lander. The spacecraft landed in Utopia Planitia, the same area where NASA’s Viking 2 mission landed in 1976. Watch a simulation video of the Chinese lander’s landing on Mars: (Source: Global Times) Earlier, in a statement on the same day, CNSA said, “The Tianwen 1 probe has been operating normally since its successful launch on July 23, 2020”. The agency added that it had collected a “massive amount” of scientific data as the Tianwen 1 rover orbited Mars. “With the assessment of the flight status, the Tianwen 1 probe is scheduled to conduct a landing operation against the Utopia Planitia area at the appropriate location from the early morning of May 15 to May 19 according to the Beijing time,” the CNSA statement said. The Utopia Basin is the largest recognized basin on Mars, with a diameter of about 3,300 km. Graphic image of China’s probe landing on Mars. Photo: Space The image of Mars was taken from afar by the Thien Van 1 spacecraft. Photo: AFP. According to The Verge, China is planning to land a pair of robots on the surface of Mars, making a daring attempt to become the second country to successfully land and operate a rover on Mars. Red Planet. China launched the unmanned Tianwen-1 spacecraft from the southern island of Hainan in July 2020, with the goal of sending a rover to the surface of Mars to collect data about the source groundwater and look for possible signs of ancient life there. So far, only the US has successfully implemented the technique to bring the rover to Mars and operate it. After a journey of nearly 7 months, the Tianwen 1 spacecraft successfully moved into Mars’ orbit on February 10 and then sent back to Earth many high-definition pictures of the Red planet’s surface. Image of the surface of Mars taken by the Tianwen 1 spacecraft from a distance of 330 to 350 km. Photo: AFP. “The main mission of Tianwen 1 is to conduct a global and extensive survey of all of Mars using orbiters and to bring the probes to surface locations of scientific interest to conduct detailed investigations with precision and high resolution,” the Tianwen 1 mission’s leading scientists wrote in the journal Nature Astronomy last year. Long March 5B rocket, the same type that launched the Tianwen 1 spacecraft to Mars, during the launch event of China’s space station module in April. Photo: AFP/Getty Images Model of the Tianwen 1 probe. Photo: AFP The Tianwen 1 mission marks the latest step in China’s rapid succession of advances in space exploration. The country became the first country in history to land and operate a probe on the far side of the Moon in 2019. Beijing also completed a lunar sampling mission last December. , with launching a robot to the Moon and quickly returning it to Earth carrying soil samples. Tianwen 1 is China’s first Mars landing mission, but it’s not the country’s first attempt to send a probe to Mars. The first is a fairy orbiter called Huynh Hoa 1, launched in 2011 with Russia’s Phobos-Grunt mission. This ship did not go beyond Earth orbit after launch, plunged into the Pacific Ocean and was destroyed. Before the successful Mars landing of the Tianwen 1 mission, the US successfully landed 5 rovers on the surface of the Red planet. Most recently, on February 20, 2021, NASA’s Perseverance probe passed through the Martian atmosphere and landed on this planet, with the historic mission of bringing back the rocks to help answer the question. whether life ever existed on Mars. On May 28, 1971, the Soviet Union also launched the Mars probe Mars 3, nine days after its “twin” spacecraft, Mars 2, was launched. Illustration of the Soviet Mars 3 probe on Mars. While making a Mars landing on November 27, 1971, the Mars 2 lander crashed to the Martian surface and disappeared in a dust storm. Then, Mars 3 landed in the Ptolemaic crater area in the southern hemisphere of Mars on December 2 of the same year. At first it seemed that Mars 3’s landing went perfectly, but just 110 seconds after landing, the device disappeared in silence. Since then, the Russians have not received any signal from the ship.

This weekend, China’s Long March 5B (Truong Chinh 5B) missile will fall back to Earth. Instead of falling into the sea as originally planned, the Long March 5B was orbiting the Earth and lost control. The silence from the China National Space Administration (CNSA) coupled with the rocket’s too fast travel speed makes scientists at other space research institutions do not have enough computational data, see rockets. Where will it fall. Hard to have human casualties The Long March 5B missile is 30 meters long, weighs 22.5 tons, and when it falls to the ground the equivalent of a small plane falling and debris flying 160 km away. This is the comment of Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. In 2020, a 50 meter long fragment also from a Chinese rocket crashed into the Atlantic, just 13 minutes after passing New York City with 9 million inhabitants. However, a 12-meter-long piece may have crashed in a village on Ivory Coast, according to the report The Verge , from the source of the local newspaper Afriksoir. The villagers heard a loud explosion, lightning, and noise at the same time that scientists calculated missile debris. The 12-meter-long debris that fell on the village of Mahounou on Ivory Coast in May 2020 is believed to have belonged to the Truong Chinh 5B missile. Photo: Afrik Soir. The orbits re-enter the atmosphere of rockets, which are inherently difficult to predict, because they travel at speeds of thousands of kilometers per hour. Scientists can only calculate accuracy after the rocket has returned to the atmosphere and began to fall. However, according to Mr. McDowell’s estimates, there will be no loss of life. Rockets will usually be burned most of the time when they pass through the atmosphere. Only a few parts, which are designed to be more heat resistant, can fall back to Earth. However, with a planet’s surface area of ​​up to 75% that is water, and also much of the ground uninhabited, the probability that missile debris could fall right where humans are inhabited is very low. “The worst scenario is that when a small piece falls on a person, that person is more likely to die. The probability that a lot of people get a debris fall is not high,” said Jonathan McDoWell. With a landing speed of about 160 km / h, debris falling on structures and vehicles will also leave great consequences. However, since the debris will fall in an area up to 160 km in diameter, the likelihood that they will fall into an inhabited, residential area is also very low. The Long March 5B missile contains the core module of the new space station. Photo: Getty Images. According to the Independent Over the past decade there have been about 100 satellites, and the wreckage of the missile returns to Earth every year, with a total mass of 150 tons. However, most of them do not cause serious consequences. The mass of space junk that fell in 2020 is the fourth largest block to fall back to Earth in history, after the Skylab space station in 1979, the Skylab’s rocket deck in 1975, and the Salyut-7, the Soviet space station, At 1991. Big problem with space junk This is not the first time that CNSA has had problems with objects landing on Earth from space. In 2018, the Tiangong-1 space station freely fell into the Pacific, between Australia and Chile. The Ivory Coast incident in May 2020 was also caused by another Long March 5B missile. Although there is little potential to cause material or life damage, the disposal of rockets and satellites out of use still leaves many scientists a headache. When a satellite expires, becomes unusable, it resumes its orbit. A boosters after completing a mission to put the spacecraft into orbit will also be left in the air. And when two objects in the universe collide with each other and create millions of debris, they are also left in space. Cosmic debris are surrounding the Earth. Photo: Nikkei. No one has put a ship on board and collects debris in space. All materials left by humans so far are known as cosmic trash. NASA scientist Donald Kessler believes that colliding with two large pieces of space debris can create a domino effect, causing thousands of smaller debris to continue orbiting the Earth. Mr. Kessler warns there will be a day when space junk becomes so much that we cannot launch a satellite without hitting another object. By then, we will be prisoners on our own planet, and will not blame anyone else but humans. As for the controllable missiles, the space agencies will calculate to bring them back to Point Nemo, which is considered the “graveyard” of spacecraft in the ocean. With the closest distance to the mainland of 2,250 km, the South Pacific Ocean is considered the “pole of the ocean” and is no different than a desert region in the middle of the sea.