Category Archives: Chinese space agency

astronomy, Chinese space agency, chinese space missions

China’s Mars Mission

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Let’s take a little closer look at the upcoming China mission to the Red Planet. A couple of years ago I wrote a book about space exploration and covered what was happening with the Chinese space program.  And, I’ve spent the past few entries looking at their ambitious plans. Of course, their scientists are conducting and planning a number of missions. I’m pleased to see China become the latest country to join in the exploration of Mars, and I’ve been following that with interest.

The China Mars mission set to leave Earth in mid-2020.
China’s Mars Global Remote Sensing and rover spacecraft (temporarily named Huoxing) under integration. This Mars mission will leave Earth in mid-2020 for a trip to the Red Planet. Courtesy China National Space Administration.

Later this year— slated for a possible lift-off—the Chinese National Space Administration will launch their Huoxing mission to Mars. It will land in 2021.  Huoxing is a temporary name and means “Mars” in Mandarin. The spacecraft combines a remote sensing orbiter and a small rover that will land on the planet. Between the two components, the mission will carry twelve instruments. The orbiter will have two cameras, giving it high-resolution and medium-resolution “eyes” on the planet. There’s also a radar instrument to study the subsurface, plus a spectrometer to do mineralogy, a magnetometer, and particle analyzers.

The rover has a multispectral camera so it can take images at different wavelengths. It also is equipped with spectroscopy instruments, ground-penetrating radar and other sensors that will study the climate and magnetic environment.  The rover will work independently at times and with its orbiter for joint science studies.  It will land somewhere in Utopia Planitia, and the Chinese have identified two possible sites as final targets.

Getting Ready for Mars

The Chinese have been testing the instruments on the spacecraft as the whole assembly goes through integration. We all saw images last year when they did a landing test using a model of the rover.  It’s all pretty standard for such a complex and exacting project.

Test of the Chinese Mars mission's maneuvering ability.
The simulated landing test for the Huoxing Mars mission. It showed how the spacecraft rover will hover and avoid obstacles during its 2021 landing on the Red Planet. Courtesy China National Space Administration.

The spacecraft will head to space atop a Long March 5 rocket. We saw them successfully launch a satellite using this rocket in late December.  Just this week, China did a successful booster engine test on the actual rocker, a Long March 5 Y4.  So, the pieces and parts for this mission are falling into place for the Chinese.

This mission is not just valuable for its science, but it’s also a precursor or pathfinder for a sample return mission that China is looking at doing in the 2030s. This mission could also cache some samples during its prime mission for later retrieval by another spacecraft. 

Once on Mars…

When the orbiter and lander get to Mars, Chinese scientists have an ambitious program planned. One of the main objectives is to look for current and/or previous life signs. It will also study the surface and environment over a long period of time. Huoxing will be busy with soil studies and topographic measurements to the examination of Martian water ice. The atmosphere and ionosphere will also come in for a closer look. In short, Huoxing will be doing all the things anybody would want to know about a planet and parts as they plan future missions. Stay tuned for more from China as it develops!

astronomy, Chinese space agency, chinese space missions

China’s March to Mars

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People want to go to the Red Planet, including China. The United States has sent many spacecraft there, as have India and the European Space Agency. Early in the history of the Space Race, the then-Soviet Union mounted an ambitious campaign to get swarms of spacecraft to the Red Planet. A few of their spacecraft did get there and return a little data, but that was about it. Most others failed. As did missions from the U.S. and other countries. But, for the most part, the exploration of Mars has been a largely American concern.

Of course, many of us have heard that Elon Musk wants to send a population of people to Mars. That will start as soon as he’s able to marshall all the resources. His missions could happen in the next decade. We’ll have to wait and see what happens next with SpaceX’s intentions toward the fourth planet.

China and Mars

Of course, China has its eyes on Mars these days. The Chinese National Space Agency has sent one mission to the Red Planet. That was the Yinghuo-1 probe that accompanied the Russian Fobos-Grunt sample return spacecraft. Yinghuo-1 was supposed to orbit Mars while its partner studied the moon Phobos. However, the mission failed not long after launch from Earth in 2011. A few months later, in 2012, Yinghuo-1 deorbited into Earth’s atmosphere and disintegrated.

Despite that inauspicious beginning, China has solid plans for going to the Red Planet. It recently showed off its Mars Global Remote Sensing Orbiter (with Rover) headed for Mars this summer. And, late last year, it tested its most powerful rocket, called Long March-5. This heavy-lift rocket took a large satellite to orbit and ultimately can be used to send along China’s Mars orbiter on its way.

The Mars mission is reported to have a cost of about $39 million (in U.S. dollars). It’s the first of several that will bring China to parity with the U.S. in terms of Mars remote exploration.

Crewed Missions to the Red Planet

Will China want to send people to Mars? That’s an interesting question. They haven’t played that card publicly yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if eventual human exploration isn’t on their agenda. The Chinese have built a Mars simulator training area in the Gobi desert, called Mars Base 1. It serves the same function (to give astronauts a taste of what living and work on Mars is like) that other bases in Utah, Canada, and Antarctica have done for NASA explorers. Check out more about the Gobi desert camp in this video.

China and Near-Earth Space

As I mentioned in my last article, China has robust plans for human exploration of near-Earth space. The country has sent humans to space and certainly wants to get a crewed space station up and running. China will be testing a next-generation crew spacecraft this year. This will be useful for transporting both people and goods up to the new space station in the Tiangong program. It is already testing on the design of the main body of the station, which will advance those plans even further.

Where China goes—as in, working on a trans-Mars ship, exploring a near-Earth asteroid (as it has plans to do), is an interesting discussion. It also plans a possible probe out to the gas giant Jupiter, is all in the future beyond 2020. At the moment, China has signaled interest in resuming talks with the United States. Not just about trade, but also on areas of mutual concern in space exploration. And, there has been some collaboration between the U.S. and Chinese scientists on the lunar-based Change’-4 mission when it landed. China has indicated for years that it is open to collaboration on more science with anyone who will cooperate with it.

In the meantime, the Chinese National Space Agency has a good blueprint for exploration. It continues working on its future missions to near-Earth space, the Moon, Mars, and beyond.