China has given the world a first glimpse of its design for the space probe and rover it plans to use in its first mission to Mars.
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The vehicle will have have six wheels, weigh 60kg more than the rover China sent to the Moon and be powered by four solar panels. It will be delivered to Mars aboard an orbiter.
Zhang Rongqiao, the head of China’s first Mars probe, told people.cn that the Mars program will study the planet’s climate, surface, ionosphere, water ice distribution, internal structure, topography and physical field.
It is hoped that it will be able to send back data on the red planet’s soil, atmosphere and other features, including any ice or water it finds.
To date, the USA is the only country to successfully land a rover on Mars, but a joint European-Russian mission is already on its way. So far, only the US has achieved the feat.
Liu Jizhong, the Mars probe mission’s deputy director and also director of the administration’s lunar exploration project, said they have also started a global search for the mission’s name and logo, hoping to gain further public appreciation of the program and to establish a better image for China.
Weighing around 200 kilograms, it is created to operate for three Martian months, according to Sun Zezhou, chief designer of the probe.
The mission will launch on a Long March 5 rocket from the South China’s Wenchang spaceport in Hainan Island in summer 2020.
The lander will separate from the orbiter at the end of the journey, which is expected to take around seven months, before touching down in a low latitude area in the northern hemisphere of Mars where the rover will explore the surface, reported Xinhua news agency.
China became the third country to put a man in space, after the U.S. and Russian Federation, in 2003.
China is heavily investing in its space programme and has celebrated multiple successes over the past years. In late 2013, it put the Chang’e 3 lander on the moon and deployed the Jade Rabbit rover, but its three-month mission was quickly cut short when the vehicle suffered mechanical trouble. In 2003, it became the third country after the former Soviet Union and the United States to send a man in space with its own rocket. It has since carried out four further missions and operated a small space station.
China’s next manned space mission will be in October, and it is aiming for a manned moon landing by 2036.
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Although China insists its space programme exists exclusively for peaceful purposes, its progress raises concerns in the West.
